THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Commodore  Byron  McCandless 


E.LAURIATcol 
ash'nSt.Bostonl 


• 


i* 


CANADA 

THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 

BEING  THE  ROMANTIC   STORY  OF  THE 

NEW  DOMINION'S  GROWTH   FROM 

COLONY   TO   KINGDOM 


BY 


AGNES  C.  LAUT 

AUTHOR    OF    "THE    CONQUEST    OF    THE    GREAT    NORTH-WEST" 
"LORDS    OF   THE    NORTH,"    ETC. 


BOSTON  AND  LONDON 
GINN  AND  COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS 

1909 


COPYRIGHT,  1909,  BY  AGNES  C.  LAUT 

ENTERED   AT   STATIONERS'  HALL 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

49-8 


JKbe    3 1 1)  e  n  oc  u  m    £  r  c  s  s 

G1NN   AND  COMPANY-  PRO- 
PRIETORS •  BOSTON  •  U.S.A. 


F 


PREFACE 

To  re-create  the  shadowy  figures  of  the  heroic  past,  to  clothe 
the  dead  once  more  in  flesh  and  blood,  to  set  the  puppets  of  the 
play  in  life's  great  dramas  again  upon  the  stage  of  action, — 
frankly,  this  may  not  be  formal  history,  but  it  is  what  makes  the 
past  most  real  to  the  present  day.  Pictures  of  men  and  women, 
of  moving  throngs  and  heroic  episodes,  stick  faster  in  the  mind 
than  lists  of  governors  and  arguments  on  treaties.  Such  pic- 
tures may  not  be  history,  but  they  breathe  life  into  the  skeletons 
of  the  past. 

Canada's  past  is  more  dramatic  than  any  romance  ever  penned. 
The  story  of  that  past  has  been  told  many  times  and  in  many 
volumes,  with  far  digressions  on  Louisiana  and  New  England 
and  the  kingcraft  of  Europe.  The  trouble  is,  the  story  has  not 
been  told  in  one  volume.  Too  much  has  been  attempted.  To 
include  the  story  of  New  England  wars  and  Louisiana's  pioneer 
clays,  the  story  of  Canada  itself  has  been  either  cramped  or 
crowded.  To  the  eastern  writer,  Canada's  history  has  been  the 
record  of  French  and  English  conflict.  To  him  there  has  been 
practically  no  Canada  west  of  the  Great  Lakes  ;  and  in  order 
to  tell  the  intrigue  of  European  tricksters,  very  often  the  writer 
has  been  compelled  to  exclude  the  story  of  the  Canadian  peo- 
ple,—  meaning  by  people  the  breadwinners,  the  toilers,  rather 
than  the  governing  classes.  Similarly,  to  the  western  writer, 
Canada  meant  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  As  for  the  Pacific 
coast,  it  has  been  almost  ignored  in  any  story  of  Canada. 

Needless  to  say,  a  complete  history  of  a  country  as  vast  as 
Canada,  whose  past  in  every  section  fairly  teems  with  action, 
could  not  be  crowded  into  one  volume.    To  give  even  the  story 


956745 


iv  CANADA:  THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

of  Canada's  most  prominent  episodes  and  actors  is  a  matter  of 
rigidly  excluding  the  extraneous. 

All  that  has  been  attempted  here  is  such  a  story  —  story, 
not  history — of  the  romance  and  adventure  in  Canada's  nation 
building  as  will  give  the  casual  reader  knowledge  of  the  coun- 
try's past,  and  how  that  past  led  along  a  trail  of  great  heroism 
to  the  destiny  of  a  Northern  Empire.  This  volume  is  in  no 
sense  formal  history.  There  will  be  found  in  it  no  such  lists  of 
governors  with  dates  appended,  of  treaties  with  articles  running 
to  the  fours  and  eights  and  tens,  of  battles  grouped  with  dates, 
as  have  made  Canadian  history  a  nightmare  to  children. 

It  is  only  such  a  story  as  boys  and  girls  may  read,  or  the 
hurried  business  man  on  the  train,  who  wants  to  know  "what 
was  doing"  in  the  past;  and  it  is  mainly  a  story  of  men  and 
women  and  things  doing. 

I  have  not  given  at  the  end  of  each  chapter  the  list  of  author- 
ities customary  in  formal  history.  At  the  same  time  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  I  have  dug  most  rigorously  down  to  original 
sources  for  facts  ;  and  of  secondary  authorities,  from  Pierre 
Boucher,  his  Book,  to  modern  reprints  of  Champlain  and  L'Es- 
carbot,  there  are  not  any  I  have  not  consulted  more  or  less. 
Especially  am  I  indebted  to  the  Documentary  History  of  New 
York,  sixteen  volumes,  bearing  on  early  border  wars  ;  to  Docu- 
ments Relatifs  a  la  Nouvelle  France,  Quebec ;  to  the  Canadian 
Archives  since  1886  ;  to  the  special  historical  issues  of  each  of 
the  eastern  provinces  ;  and  to  the  monumental  works  of  Dr. 
Kingsford.  Nearly  all  the  places  described  are  from  frequent 
visits  or  from  living  on  the  spot. 


INTRODUCTION 

"The  Twentieth  century  belongs  to  Canada." 

The  prediction  of  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier,  Premier  of  the  Dominion, 
seems  likely  to  have  bigger  fulfillment  than  Canadians  themselves 
realize.    What  does  it  mean  ? 

Canada  stands  at  the  same  place  in  the  world's  history  as 
England  stood  in  the  Golden  Age  of  Queen  Elizabeth  —  on  the 
threshold  of  her  future  as  a  great  nation.  Her  population  is 
the  same,  about  seven  million.  Her  mental  attitude  is  similar, 
that  of  a  great  awakening,  a  consciousness  of  new  strength,  an 
exuberance  of  energy  biting  on  the  bit  to  run  the  race  ;  mel- 
lowed memory  of  hard-won  battles  against  tremendous  odds  in 
the  past ;  for  the  future,  a  golden  vision  opening  on  vistas  too 
far  to  follow.  They  dreamed  pretty  big  in  the  days  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  but  they  did  n't  dream  big  enough  for  what  was  to 
come  ;  and  they  are  dreaming  pretty  big  up  in  Canada  to-day, 
but  it  is  hard  to  forecast  the  future  when  a  nation  the  size  of 
all  Europe  is  setting  out  on  the  career  of  her  world  history. 

To  put  it  differently  :  Canada's  position  is  very  much  the 
same  to-day  as  the  United  States'  a  century  ago.  Her  popula- 
tion is  about  seven  million.  The  population  of  the  United  States 
was  seven  million  in  1S10.  One  was  a  strip  of  isolated  settle- 
ments north  and  south  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  ;  the  other, 
a  string  of  provinces  east  and  west  along  the  waterways  that 
ramify  from  the  St.  Lawrence.  Both  possessed  and  were  flanked 
by  vast  unexploited  territory  the  size  of  Russia ;  the  United 
States  by  a  Louisiana,  Canada  by  the  Great  Northwest.  What 
the  Civil  War  did  for  the  United  States,  Confederation  did  for 
the  Canadian  provinces  —  welded  them  into  a  nation.  The  par- 
allel   need   not   be    carried    farther.     If    the   same   development 


vi  CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

t 
follows  Confederation  in  Canada  as  followed  the  Civil  War  in 

the  United  States,  the  twentieth  century  will  witness  the  birth 
and  growth  of  a  world  power. 

To  no  one  has  the  future  opening  before  Canada  come  as  a 
greater  surprise  than  to  Canadians  themselves.  A  few  years 
ago  such  a  claim  as  the  Premier's  would  have  been  regarded  as 
the  effusions  of  the  after-dinner  speaker.  While  Canadian  poli- 
ticians were  hoping  for  the  honor  of  being  accorded  colonial 
place  in  the  English  Parliament,  they  suddenly  awakened  to  find 
themselves  a  nation.  They  suddenly  realized  that  history,  and 
big  history,  too,  was  in  the  making.  Instead  of  Canada  being 
dependent  on  the  Empire,  the  Empire's  most  far-seeing  states- 
men were  looking  to  Canada  for  the  strength  of  the  British 
Empire.  No  longer  is  there  a  desire  among  Canadians  for  place 
in  the  Parliament  at  Westminster.  With  a  new  empire  of  their 
own  to  develop,  equal  in  size  to  the  whole  of  Europe,  Canadian 
public  men  realize  they  have  enough  to  do  without  taking  a  hand 
in  European  affairs. 

As  the  different  Canadian  provinces  came  into  Confederation 
they  were  like  beads  on  a  string  a  thousand  miles  apart.  First 
were  the  Maritime  Provinces,  with  western  bounds  touching  the 
eastern  bounds  of  Quebec,  but  in  reality  with  the  settlements  of 
New  Brunswick,  and  Nova  Scotia,  and  Prince  Edward  Island 
separated  from  the  settlements  of  Quebec  by  a  thousand  miles 
of  untracked  forest.  Only  the  Ottawa  River  separated  Quebec 
from  Ontario,  but  one  province  was  French,  the  other  English, 
aliens  to  each  other  in  religion,  language,  and  customs.  A  thou- 
sand miles  of  rock-bound,  winter-bound  wastes  lay  between  On- 
tario and  the  scattered  settlement  of  Red  River  in  Manitoba.  Not 
an  interest  was  in  common  between  the  little  province  of  the  mid- 
dle west  and  her  sisters  to  the  east.  Then  prairie  land  came  for 
a  thousand  miles,  and  mountains  for  six  hundred  miles,  before 
reaching  the  Pacific  province  of  British  Columbia,  more  com- 
pletely cut  off  from  other  parts  of  Canada  than  from  Mexico  or 
Panama.  In  fact,  it  would  have  been  easier  for  British  Columbia 
to  trade  with  Mexico  and  Panama  than  with  the  rest  of  Canada. 


INTRODUCTION  vil 

To  bind  these  far-separated  patches  of  settlement,  oases  in  a 
desert  of  wilds,  into  a  nation  was  the  object  of  the  union  known 
as  Confederation.  But  a  nation  can  live  only  as  it  trades  what 
it  draws  from  the  soil.  Naturally,  the  isolated  provinces  looked 
for  trade  to  the  United  States,  just  across  an  invisible  boundary. 
It  seemed  absurd  that  the  Canadian  provinces  should  try  to 
trade  with  each  other,  a  thousand  miles  apart,  rather  than  with 
the  United  States,  a  stone's  throw  from  the  door  of  each  prov- 
ince. But  the  United  States  erected  a  tariff  wall  that  Canada 
could  not  climb.  The  struggling  Dominion  was  thrown  solely 
on  herself,  and  set  about  the  giant  task  of  linking  the  provinces 
together,  building  railroads  from  Atlantic  to  Pacific,  canals  from 
tide  water  to  the  Great  Lakes.  In  actual  cash  this  cost  Canada 
four  hundred  million  dollars,  not  counting  land  grants  and  pri- 
vate subscriptions  for  stock,  which  would  bring  up  the  cost  of 
binding  the  provinces  together  to  a  billion.  This  was  a  stagger- 
ing burden  for  a  country  with  smaller  population  than  Greater 
New  York  —  a  burden  as  big  as  Japan  and  Russia  assumed  for 
their  war  ;  but,  like  war,  the  expenditure  was  a  fight  for  national 
existence.  Without  the  railroads  and  canals,  the  provinces  could 
not  have  been  bound  together  into  a  nation. 

These  were  Canada's  pioneer  days,  when  she  was  spending 
more  than  she  was  earning,  when  she  bound  herself  down  to 
grinding  poverty  and  big  risks  and  hard  tasks.  It  was  a  long 
pull,  and  a  hard  pull ;  but  it  was  a  pull  altogether.  That  was 
Canada's  seed  time  ;  this  is  her  harvest.  That  was  her  night 
work,  when  she  toiled,  while  other  nations  slept  ;  now  is  the 
awakening,  when  the  world  sees  what  she  was  doing.  Railroad 
man,  farmer,  miner,  manufacturer,  all  had  the  same  struggle, 
the  big  outlay  of  labor  and  money  at  first,  the  big  risk  and  no 
profit,  the  long  period  of  waiting. 

Canada  was  laying  her  foundations  of  yesterday  for  the 
superstructure  of  prosperity  to-day  and  to-morrow — the  New 
Empire. 

When  one  surveys  the  country  as  a  whole,  the  facts  are  so 
big  they  are  bewildering. 


Vlii  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

In  the  first  place,  the  area  of  the  Dominion  is  within  a  few 
thousand  miles  of  as  large  as  all  Europe.  To  be  more  specific, 
you  could  spread  the  surface  of  Italy  and  Spain  and  Turkey 
and  Greece  and  Austria  over  eastern  Canada,  and  you  would 
still  have  an  area  uncovered  in  the  east  alone  bigger  than  the 
German  Empire.  England  spread  flat  on  the  surface  of  Eastern 
Canada  would  just  serve  to  cover  the  Maritime  Provinces  nicely, 
leaving  uncovered  Quebec,  which  is  a  third  bigger  than  Ger- 
many ;  Ontario,  which  is  bigger  than  France  ;  and  Labrador 
(Ungava),  which  is  about  the  size  of  Austria. 

In  the  west  you  could  spread  the  British  Isles  out  fiat, 
and  you  would  not  cover  Manitoba  —  with  her  new  bound- 
aries extending  to  Hudson  Bay.  It  would  take  a  country  the 
size  of  France  to  cover  the  province  of  Saskatchewan,  a  country 
larger  than  Germany  to  cover  Alberta,  two  countries  the  size  of 
Germany  to  cover  British  Columbia  and  the  Yukon,  and  there 
would  still  be  left  uncovered  the  northern  half  of  the  West  — 
an  area  the  size  of  European  Russia. 

No  Old  World  monarch  from  William  the  Conqueror  to  Na- 
poleon could  boast  of  such  a  realm.  People  are  fond  of  tracing 
ancestry  back  to  feudal  barons  of  the  Middle  Ages.  What  feu- 
dal baron  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  Lord  of  the  Outer  Marches, 
was  heir  to  such  heritage  as  Canada  may  claim  ?  Think  of  it  ! 
Combine  all  the  feudatory  domains  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube, 
you  have  not  so  vast  an  estate  as  a  single  western  province.  Or 
gather  up  all  the  estates  of  England's  midland  counties  and 
eastern  shires  and  borderlands,  you  have  not  enough  land  to 
fill  one  of  Canada's  inland  seas,  —  Lake  Superior. 

If  there  were  a  population  in  eastern  Canada  equal  to  France, — 
and  Quebec  alone  would  support  a  population  equal  to  F ranee,  — 
and  in  Manitoba  equal  to  the  British  Isles,  and  in  Saskatchewan 
equal  to  France,  and  in  Alberta  equal  to  Germany,  and  in  British 
Columbia  equal  to  Germany,  —  ignoring  Yukon,  Mackenzie  River, 
Keewatin,  and  Labrador,  taking  only  those  parts  of  Canada  where 
climate  has  been  tested  and  lands  surveyed,  —  Canada  would 
support  two  hundred  million  people. 


INTRODUCTION  IX 

The  figures  are  staggering,  but  they  are  not  half  so  improba- 
ble as  the  actual  facts  of  what  has  taken  place  in  the  United 
States.  America's  population  was  acquired  against  hard  odds. 
There  were  no  railroads  when  the  movement  to  America  began. 
The  only  ocean  goers  were  sailboats  of  slow  progress  and  great 
discomfort.  In  Europe  was  profound  ignorance  regarding  Amer- 
ica ;  to-day  all  is  changed.  Canada  begins  where  the  United 
States  left  off.  The  whole  world  is  gridironed  with  railroads. 
Fast  Atlantic  liners  offer  greater  comfort  to  the  emigrant  than 
he  has  known  at  home.  Ignorance  of  America  has  given  place 
to  almost  romantic  glamour.  Just  when  the  free  lands  of  the 
United  States  are  exhausted  and  the  government  is  putting  up 
bars  to  keep  out  the  immigrant,  Canada  is  in  a  position  to  open 
her  doors  wide.  Less  than  a  fortieth  of  the  entire  West  is 
inhabited.  Of  the  Great  Clay  Belt  of  North  Ontario  only  a 
patch  on  the  southern  edge  is  populated.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  Great  Forest  Belt  of  Quebec.  These  facts  are  the  mag- 
net that  will  attract  the  immigrant  to  Canada.  The  United 
States  wants  no  more  immigrants. 

And  the  movement  to  Canada  has  begun.  To  her  shores  are 
thronging  the  hosts  of  the  Old  World's  dispossessed,  in  mul- 
titudes greater  than  any  army  that  ever  marched  to  conquest 
under  Napoleon.  When  the  history  of  America  comes  to  be 
written  in  a  hundred  years,  it  will  not  be  the  record  of  a  slaughter 
field  with  contending  nations  battling  for  the  mastery,  or  gen- 
erals wading  to  glory  knee-deep  in  blood.  It  will  be  an  account 
of  the  most  wonderful  race  movement,  the  most  wonderful 
experiment  in  democracy  the  world  has  known. 

The  people  thronging  to  Canada  for  homes,  who  are  to  be 
her  nation  builders,  are  people  crowded  out  of  their  home  lands, 
who  had  n't  room  for  the  shoulder  swing  manhood  and  woman- 
hood need  to  carve  out  honorable  careers.  Look  at  them  in  the 
streets  of  London,  or  Glasgow,  or  Dublin,  or  Berlin,  these  emi- 
gres, as  the  French  called  their  royalists,  whom  revolution  drove 
from  home,  and  I  think  the  word  emigre  is  a  truer  description 
of  the  newcomer  to  Canada  than  the  word  "  emigrant."    They  are 


x  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

poor,  they  are  desperately  poor,  so  poor  that  a  month's  illness 
or  a  shut-down  of  the  factory  may  push  them  from  poverty  to 
the  abyss.  They  are  thrifty,  but  can  neither  earn  nor  save  enough 
to  feel  absolutely  sure  that  the  hollow-eyed  specter  of  Want  may 
not  seize  them  by  the  throat.  They  are  willing  to  work,  so  eager 
to  work  that  at  the  docks  and  the  factory  gates  they  trample 
and  jostle  one  another  for  the  chance  to  work.  They  are  the 
underpinnings,  the  underprops  of  an  old  system,  these  emigres, 
by  which  the  masses  were  expected  to  toil  for  the  benefit  of 
the  classes. 

"  It 's  all  the  average  man  or  woman  is  good  for,"  says  the 
Old  Order,  "just  a  day's  wage  representing  bodily  needs." 

"  Wait,"  says  the  New  Order.  "  Give  him  room  !  Give  him 
an  opportunity  !  Give  him  a  full  stomach  to  pump  blood  to  his 
muscles  and  life  to  his  brain  !  Wait  and  see  !  If  he  fails  then, 
let  him  drop  to  the  bottom  of  the  social  pit  without  stop  of 
poorhouse  or  help  !  " 

A  penniless  immigrant  boy  arrives  in  New  York.  First  he 
peddles  peanuts,  then  he  trades  in  a  half-huckster  way  whatever 
comes  to  hand  and  earns  profits.  Presently  he  becomes  a  fur 
trader  and  invests  his  savings  in  real  estate.  Before  that  man 
dies,  he  has  a  monthly  income  equal  to  the  yearly  income  of 
European  kings.    That  man's  name  was  John  Jacob  Astor. 

Or  a  young  Scotch  boy  comes  out  on  a  sailing  vessel  to 
Canada.  For  a  score  of  years  he  is  an  obscure  clerk  at  a  dis- 
tant trading  post  in  Labrador.  He  comes  out  of  the  wilds  to 
take  a  higher  position  as  land  commissioner.  Presently  he  is 
backing  railroad  ventures  of  tremendous  cost  and  tremendous 
risk.  Within  thirty  years  from  the  time  he  came  out  of  the 
wilds  penniless,  that  man  possesses  a  fortune  equal  to  the 
national  income  of  European  kingdoms.  The  man's  name  is 
Lord  Strathcona. 

Or  a  hard-working  coal  miner  emigrates  to  Canada.  The  man 
has  brains  as  well  as  hands.  Other  coal  miners  emigrate  at  the 
same  time,  but  this  man  is  as  keen  as  a  razor  in  foresight  and 
care.    From  coal  miner  he  becomes  coal  manager,  from  manager 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

operator,  from  operator  owner,  and  dies  worth  a  fortune  that 
the  barons  of  the  Middle  Ages  would  have  drenched  their  coun- 
tries in  blood  to  win.    The  man's  name  is  James  Dunsmuir. 

Or  it  is  a  boy  clerking  in  a  departmental  store.  He  emigrates. 
When  he  goes  back  to  England  it  is  to  marry  a  lady  in  waiting 
to  the  Queen.    He  is  now  known  as  Lord  Mount-Stephen. 

What  was  the  secret  of  the  success  ?  Ability  in  the  first 
place,  but  in  the  second,  opportunity  ;  opportunity  and  room  for 
shoulder  swing  to  show  what  a  man  can  do  when  keen  ability 
and  tireless  energy  have  untrammeled  freedom  to  do  their  best. 

Examples  of  the  emigres'  success  could  be  multiplied.  It  is 
more  than  a  mere  material  success  ;  it  is  eternal  proof  that,  given 
a  fair  chance  and  a  square  deal  and  shoulder  swing,  the  boy  born 
penniless  can  run  the  race  and  outstrip  the  boy  born  to  power. 

"  Have  you,  then,  no  menial  classes  in  Canada  ?  "  asked  a 
member  of  the  Old  Order. 

"  No,  I  'm  thankful  to  say,"  said  I. 

"  Then  who  does  the  work  ?  " 

"  The  workers." 

"  But  what 's  the  difference  ?  " 

"Just  this  :  your  menial  of  the  Old  Country  is  the  child  of  a 
menial,  whose  father  before  him  was  a  menial,  whose  ancestors 
were  in  servile  positions  to  other  people  back  as  far  as  you  like 
to  go,  —  to  the  time  when  men  were  serfs  wearing  an  iron  collar 
with  the  brand  of  the  lord  who  owned  them.  With  us  no  stigma 
is  attached  to  work.  Your  menial  expects  to  be  a  menial  all  his 
life.  With  our  worker,  just  as  sure  as  the  sun  rises  and  sets, 
if  he  continues  to  work  and  is  no  fool,  he  will  rise  to  earn  a  com- 
petency, to  improve  himself,  to  own  his  own  labor,  to  own  his 
own  home,  to  hire  the  labor  of  other  men  who  are  beginners  as 
he  once  was  himself." 

"  Then  you  have  no  social  classes  ?  " 

"  Lots.  The  ups,  who  have  succeeded  ;  and  the  halfzvay  tips, 
who  are  succeeding  ;  and  the  beginners,  who  are  going  to  suc- 
ceed ;  and  the  downs,  who  never  try.  And  as  success  does  n't 
necessarily  mean  money,  but  doing  the  best  at  whatever  one  tries, 


xii  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

you  can  see  that  the  nps  and  the  halfway  ufis,  and  the  beginners 
and  the  downs  have  each  their  own  classes  of  special  workers." 

"That,"  she  answered,  "is  not  democracy;  it  is  revolution." 
She  was  thinking  of  those  Old  World  hard-and-fast  divisions  of 
society  into  royalty,  aristocracy,  commons,  peasantry. 

"It  is  not  revolution,"  I  explained.  "It  is  rebirth!  When 
you  send  your  emigre 'out  to  us,  he  is  a  made-over  man." 

But  it  is  not  given  to  all  emigres  to  become  great  capitalists 
or  great  leaders.  Some  who  have  the  opportunity  have  not  the 
ability,  and  the  majority  would  not,  for  all  the  rewards  that  great- 
ness offers,  choose  careers  that  entail  long  years  of  nerve-wrack- 
ing, unflagging  labor.  But  on  a  minor  scale  the  same  process 
of  making  over  takes  place.    One  case  will  illustrate. 

Some  years  before  immigration  to  Canada  had  become  gen- 
eral, two  or  three  hundred  Icelanders  were  landed  in  Winnipeg 
destitute.  From  some  reason,  which  I  have  forgotten, — prob- 
ably the  quarantine  of  an  immigrant,  —  the  Icelanders  could  not 
be  housed  in  the  government  immigration  hall.  They  were  abso- 
lutely without  money,  household  goods,  property  of  any  sort 
except  clothing,  and  that  was  scant,  the  men  having  but  one 
suit  of  the  poorest  clothes,  the  women  thin  homespun  dresses 
so  worn  one  could  see  many  of  them  had  no  underwear.  The 
people  represented  the  very  dregs  of  poverty.  Withdrawing  to 
the  vacant  lots  in  the  west  end  of  Winnipeg,  — at  that  time  a 
mere  town,  —  the  newcomers  slept  for  the  first  nights,  herded  in 
the  rooms  of  an  Icelander  opulent  enough  to  have  rented  a 
house.  Those  who  could  not  gain  admittance  to  this  house 
slept  under  the  high  board  sidewalks,  then  a  feature  of  the  new 
town.  I  remember  as  a  child  watching  them  sit  on  the  high 
sidewalk  till  it  was  dark,  then  roll  under.  Fortunately  it  was 
summer,  but  it  was  useless  for  people  in  this  condition  to  go 
bare  to  the  prairie  farm.  To  make  kind  yield,  you  must  have 
house  and  barns  and  stock  and  implements,  and  I  doubt  if  these 
people  had  as  much  as  a  jackknife.  I  remember  how  two  or 
three  of  the  older  women  used  to  sit  crying  each  night  in 
despair  till  they  disappeared  in  the  crowded  house,  fourteen  or 


INTRODUCTION  Xlll 

twenty  of  them  to  a  room.  Within  a  week,  the  men  were  all  at 
work,  sawing  wood  from  door  to  door  at  a  dollar  and  a  half  a 
cord,  the  women  out  by  the  day  washing  at  a  dollar  a  day. 
Within  a  month  they  had  earned  enough  to  buy  lumber  and  tar 
paper.  Tar-papered  shanties  went  up  like  mushrooms  on  the 
vacant  lots.  Before  winter  each  family  had  bought  a  cow  and 
chickens.  I  shall  not  betray  confidence  by  telling  where  the  cow 
and  chickens  slept.  Those  immigrants  were  not  desirable  neigh- 
bors. Other  people  moved  hastily  away  from  the  region.  Such 
a  condition  would  not  be  tolerated  now,  when  there  are  spacious 
immigration  halls  and  sanitary  inspectors  to  see  that  cows  and 
people  do  not  house  under  the  same  roof.  What  with  work  and 
peddling  milk,  by  spring  the  people  were  able  to  move  out  on 
the  free  prairie  farms.  To-day  those  Icelanders  own  farms  clear 
of  debt,  own  stock  that  would  be  considered  the  possession  of  a 
capitalist  in  Iceland,  and  have  money  in  the  savings  banks. 
Their  sons  and  daughters  have  had  university  educations  and 
have  entered  every  avenue  of  life,  farming,  trading,  practicing 
medicine,  actually  teaching  English  in  English  schools.  Some 
are  members  of  Parliament.  It  was  a  hard  beginning,  but  it  was 
a  rebirth  to  a  new  life.  They  are  now  among  the  nation  builders 
of  the  West. 

But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  conclude  that  Canada's  nation 
builders  consisted  entirely  of  poor  people.  The  race  movement 
has  not  been  a  leaderless  mob.  Princes,  nobles,  adventurers, 
soldiers  of  fortune,  were  the  pathfinders  who  blazed  the  trail  to 
Canada.  Glory,  pure  and  simple,  was  the  aim  that  lured  the 
first  comers  across  the  trackless  seas.  Adventurous  young  aris- 
tocrats, members  of  the  Old  Order,  led  the  first  nation  builders 
to  America,  and,  all  unconscious  of  destiny,  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  New  Order.  The  story  of  their  adventures  and  work  is 
the  history  of  Canada. 

It  is  a  new  experience  in  the  world's  history,  this  race  move- 
ment that  has  built  up  the  United  States  and  is  now  building 
up  Canada.  Other  great  race  movements  have  been  a  tearing 
down  of  high  places,  the  upward  scramble  of  one  class  on  the 


XIV 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


backs  of  the  deposed  class.    Instead  of  leveling  down,  Canada's 
nation  building  is  leveling  up. 

This,  then,  is  the  empire  —  the  size  of  all  the  nations  in 
Europe,  bigger  than  Napoleon's  wildest  dreams  of  conquest  — 
to  which  Canada  has  awakened.1 


1  Comparative  Statement  of  Areas  of  Canada  and  Europe 


Canada  .     .     .     3,750,000  square  miles 
Maritime  Provinces  Square  Miles 

Nova  Scotia 20,600 

Prince  Edward  Island     .     .  2,000 

New  Brunswick      ....        28,200 

50,800 

Quebec 34705° 

Ontario 222,000 

Manitoba 

Saskatchewan 204,000 

Alberta 350,000 

British  Columbia 383,000 

Unorganized  Territory  of 

Keewatin 756,000 

Yukon 200,000 

MacKenzie    River  and  Un- 

gava 1,000,000 


Europe  .     .     .     3,797,410  square  miles 

Square  Miles 

England 50,867 

Germany 208,830 

France 204,000 

Italy 110,000 

Spain 197,000 

.  241,000 
2,000,000 


Austria  and  Hungary 
Russia  in  Europe 


Comparative  Statement  of  Population  in  Canada  and  the 
United  States 

United  States  Canada 

In  1800     .     .      .        5,000,000  In  18S1      .     .     .     4,300,000 

"   18 10     .     .     .       7,000,000  "   1 89 1     .     .     .     5,000,000 

"     1S20      .       .       .         9,600,000  "     1 90 1       .       .       .       5,500,000 

"   1S30     .     .     .     i2,Soo,ooo  "  1906     .     .     .     6,500,000 

It  will  be  noticed  that  for  twenty  years  Canada's  population  becomes  almost 
stagnant.  The  reason  for  this  will  be  found  as  the  story  of  Canada  is  related. 
If  she  keeps  up  the  increase  at  the  pace  she  has  now  set,  or  at  the  rate  the 
United  States'  population  went  ahead  during  the  same  period  of  industrial  devel- 
opment, the  results  can  be  forecast  from  the  following  table  : 

United  States  in   1840 17,000,000 

"  "        "    1850 23,000,000 

"  "        "    i860 31,000,000 

"  "        "    1S70 38,000,000 

"  "        "    18S0 50,000,000 

"        "    1890 63,000,000 

"  "        "    1900 85,000,000 


INTRODUCTION  XV 

A  few  years  ago,  when  talking  to  a  leading  editor  of  Canada,  I  chanced  to 
say  that  I  did  not  think  Canadians  had  at  that  time  awakened  to  their  future. 
The  editor  answered  that  he  was  afraid  I  had  contracted  the  American  disease 
of  "bounce"  through  living  in  the  United  States;  to  which  I  retorted  that  if 
Canadians  could  catch  the  same  disease  and  accomplish  as  much  by  it  in  the  twen- 
tieth century  as  Americans  had  in  the  nineteenth,  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  the 
country.  It  is  wonderful  to  have  witnessed  the  complete  face-about  of  Canadian 
public  opinion  in  the  short  space  of  six  years,  this  editor  shouting  as  loud  as  any 
of  his  exuberant  brethren.  Still,  as  the  outlook  in  Canadian  affairs  may  be  regarded 
as  flamboyant,  it  is  worth  while  quoting  the  comment  of  the  most  critical  and  con- 
servative newspaper  in  the  world, —  the  London  Times.  The  Times  says  :  "With- 
out doubt  the  expansion  of  Canada  is  the  greatest  political  event  in  the  British 
Empire  to-day.  The  empire  is  face  to  face  with  development  which  makes  it 
impossible  for  indefinite  maintenance  of  the  present  constitutional  arrangements." 

Regarding  the  Iceland  immigrants,  to  whom  reference  is  made,  I  recently 
met  in  London  a  famed  traveler,  who  was  in  Iceland  when  the  people  were  set- 
ting out  for  Canada,  Mrs.  Alec.  Tweedie.  She  explains  in  her  book  how  these 
people  were  absolutely  poverty-stricken  when  they  left  Iceland.  In  fact,  the  suf- 
ferings endured  the  first  year  in  Winnipeg  were  mild  compared  to  their  privations 
in  Iceland  before  they  sailed. 

The  explanations  of  Canada's  hard  times  from  Confederation  to  189S  —  say 
from  1 87 1,  when  all  the  provinces  had  really  gone  into  Confederation,  to  1S97, 
when  the  Yukon  boom  poured  gold  into  the  country  —  can  be  figured  out.  Of  a 
population  of  3,000,000,  four  fifths  need  not  be  counted  as  taxpayers,  as  they 
include  women,  children,  clerks,  farmers'  help,  domestic  help,  —  classes  who  pay 
no  taxes  but  the  indirect  duty  on  clothes  they  wear  and  food  they  eat.  This  prac- 
tically means  that  the  billion-dollar  burden  of  making  the  ideal  of  Confederation 
into  a  reality  by  building  railroads  and  canals  was  borne  by  600,000  people,  which 
means  again  a  large  quota  per  man  to  the  public  treasury.  People  forget  that  you 
can't  take  more  out  of  the  public  treasury  than  you  put  into  it,  that  it  is  n't  like 
an  artesian  well,  self-supplied,  and  the  truth  is,  at  this  period  Canadians  were  pay- 
ing more  into  the  public  treasury  than  they  could  afford,  —  more  than  the  invest- 
ment was  bringing  them  in. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I.  From  iooo  to  1600 1 

II.  From  1600  to  1607 23 

III.  From  1607  to  1635 41 

IV.  From  1635  to  1666 61 

V.  From  1635  to  1650 71 

VI.  From  1650  to  1672 94 

VII.  From  1672  to  1688 117 

VIII.  From  1679  to  17 13 143 

IX.  From  1686  to  1698 161 

X.  From  1698  to  17 13 189 

XL  From  17 13  to  1755 205 

XII.  From  1756  to  1763 241 

XIII.  From  1763  to  1812 276 

XIV.  From  1812  to  1820 318 

XV.  From  181 2  to  1846 380 

XVI.  From  1820  to  1867 410 

INDEX 439 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND   MAPS 

Page 

Map  of  Western  Canada Frontispiece 

Viking  Ship  recently  Discovered 2 

After  a  photograph  of  the  Viking  Ship  at  Sandefjord,  Norway. 

Map  showing  Division  of  the  New  World  between  Spain  and 

Portugal    3 

A   Typical    "Hole    in    the    Wall"    at    "Kitty    Viddy,"    near 

St.  John's,  Newfoundland 4 

From  a  photograph. 

Sebastian  Cabot 5 

After  the  portrait  attributed  to  Holbein. 

Jacques  Cartier S 

After  the  portrait  at  St.  Malo,  France,  with  signature. 

Where  the  Fisher  Hamlets  now  nestle,  Newfoundland      .     .       9 

From  a  photograph. 

Ancient  Hochelaga       15 

After  a  cut  in  the  third  volume  of  Ramusio's  Raccolta,  Venice,  1565. 

The  "Dauphin  Map"  of  Canada,  circa  1543.  showing  Cartier's 

Discoveries 2I 

Queen  Elizabeth 25 

After  the  ermine  portrait  in  Hatfield  House,  with  signature. 

The  Boyhood  of  Gilbert  and  Raleigh 26 

From  the  painting  by  Sir  John  Millais. 

Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert ~7 

After  the  print  in  Holland's  Henvologia-Anglica^  1620. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh -9 

After  the  portrait  in  the  possession  of  the  Duchess  of  Dorset. 

At  Eastern  Entrance  to  Hudson  Straits 31 

From  a  photograph  by  Dominion  Geological  Survey. 

Hudson  Coat  of  Arms 32 

From  Lenox  Collection,  New  York  City. 

The  Fantastic  Rocks  of  Gaspe 33 

From  a  photograph. 

xix 


xx  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Page 

Samuel  de  Champlain 34 

After  the  Moncornet  portrait,  with  signature. 

Port  Royal  or  Annapolis  Basin,  1609 36 

From  Lescarbot's  map. 

Buildings  ox  Ste.  Croix  Island 38 

From  Lcs  Voyages  Ju  Sieur  de  Champlain,  Paris,  1613. 

Port  Royal       43 

From  the  same. 

Tadoussac 45 

From  the  same. 

Defeat  of  the  Iroquois 47 

From  the  same. 

The  Onondaga  Fort     .     .  * 55 

From  the  same. 

View  of  Quebec         56 

From  the  same. 

Quebec 59 

From  the  same. 

Sir  William  Alexander 62 

After  an  engraved  portrait  by  Marshall. 

Map  showing  La  Tour's  Possessions  in  Acadia 64 

Cardinal  Richelieu       66 

After  the  portrait  by  Philippe  de  Champaigne 

Map  of  Annapolis  Basin 69 

Madame  de  la  Peltrie 73 

After  a  picture  in  the  Ursuline  Convent,  Quebec. 

Pierre  le  Jeu'ne 80 

From  an  engraving  in  Winsor's  America,  after  an  old  print. 

Georgian  Bay 84 

From  a  photograph  by  A.  G.  Alexander. 

Brebeuf 89 

From  a  bust  in  silver  at  Quebec. 
Remnants  of  Walls  of  Fort  St.  Mary  on  Christian  Island  in 

1 89 1 91 

After  a  photograph  reproduced  in  Ontario  Historical  Society  Papers  and  Records. 

Map  of  the  Great  Lakes,  showing  the  Territory  of  the  Jesuit 

Huron  Missions 92 

Hellin's  map,  1744. 

A  Canadian  on  Snowshoes 96 

From  La  Potherie's  Histoire  </t  /'.  Xm'erique  Sepfcntrionalc,  Paris,  1753. 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  AND   MAPS  xxi 

Page 

Sauson's  Map,  1656 99 

Title-page  —  Jesuit  Relation*  of  1662-1663 iii 

The  Jesuit  Map  of  Lake  Superior 112 

From  the  Relation  of  1670-167 1. 

Charles  II 114 

After  the  miniature  portrait  by  Cooper,  with  signature. 

Plan  of  Montreal  in  1672 119 

From  Quebec  Historical  Society  Papers  and  Records. 

La  Salle's  House  near  Montreal .     .    120 

From  a  photograph. 

Kitchen,  Chateau  de  Ramezay,  Montreai 120 

From  a  photograph. 

LAVAI 122 

After  the  portrait  in  Laval  University,  Quebec. 

A  Map  in  the  Relation  of  1662-1663 126 

Galinee's  Map  of  the  Great  Lakes,  1669 129 

Robert  de  la  Salle 13- 

After  an  engraved  portrait  said  to  be  preserved  in  the  Bibliotheque  de  Rouen. 
with  signature. 

Old  Plan  of  Fort  Frontenac 136 

From    Memoirs  sur  le  Canada,  Quebec,  1S73. 

The  Building  of  the  Griffon 13S 

From  Father  Hennepin's  NouveUe  Dccoavcrte,  Amsterdam,  1704. 

Prince  Rupert i_|- 

After  the  painting  by  Sir  P.  Lely. 

Map  of  Hudson  Bay r_U 

Contemporary  French  Map  of  Hudson  Bay  and  Vicinity     .     .155 

From  La  Potherie's  Histoirc  de  PAtnerique  Septentrionale. 

Le  Moyne  D'Iberville 157 

After  a  portrait  in  Margry's  Decoui-ertes  Etablissements. 

Fort  Frontenac  and  the  Adjacent  Country 164 

From  The  London  Magazine,  175S. 

William  of  Orange 166 

After  the  portrait  by  Sir  ( iodfrey  Kneller,  with  signature. 

Quebec,  1689 Tj2 

From  La  Potherie's  Histoirc  ,lc  VAmerique  Septentrionale. 

French  Soldier  of  the  Period 174 

After  a  cut  in  Massachusetts  Archives,  Documents  collected  in  France,  111.  5. 

Sir  William   Phips 176 

After  an  accepted  likeness  reproduced  in  Winsor's  America. 


xxii  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Page 

Count  Frontenac , 1 78 

From  the  statue  by  Hebert  at  Quebec. 

Castle  St.  Louis 180 

After  a  cut  in  Hawkins"  Pictures  of Quebec,  Quebec,  1S54. 

Attack  ox  Quebec,  1690 181 

From  La  Hon  tan's  Memoires,  1709. 

Castle  St.  Louis,  Quebec       183 

From  Suite's  Canadiens  Francais,  viii. 

Plan  of  Quebec 1S4 

From  P'ranquelin,  16S3. 

Landing  of  Iberville's  Men  at  Port  Nelsox 1S6 

From  La  Potherie's  Histoire  de  PAmerique  Septentrionale. 

Capture  of  Fort  Nelsox  by  the  French 1S7 

From  the  same. 

Coxtemporary  Map,  1689 191 

From  La  Hontan. 
Hertel  de  Rouville 193 

After  a  portrait  in  Daniel's  Nos  Gloires  Nationales. 

Coxtemporary  Plax  of  Port  Royal  Basix 199 

From  Bellin's  map,  1744. 

Paul  Mascarexe 201 

After  a  portrait  in  Savary's  edition  of  Calnek's  Annapolis. 

La  Verexdrye's  Forts  axd  the  Riyer  of  the  West     ....   207 

After  Jeffery's  map,  1762, 

Map  published  in  Paris  in   1752  showing  the  Supposed  Sea  of 

the  West 209 

From  the  Memoire  presented  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris  by  Buache, 
August,  1752. 

Map  showing  the  Supposed  Sea  of  the  West,  with  Approaches 

to  the  Mississippi  and  Great  Lakes.  Paris,  1755     .     .     .     .211 

From  the  same. 

William  Pepperrell 217 

After  the  portrait  by  Smibert. 

Ruins  of  the  Fortifications  at  Louisburg 219 

From  a  recent  photograph. 

Contemporary  Plax  of  the  Attack  on  Louisburg 221 

After  a  plan  reproduced  in  Winsor's  America. 

Fort  Halifax,  1755  (Restoration) 222 

Contemporary  View  of  Oswego 223 

From  Smith's  History  of  the  Province  of  New  York. 

Governor  Dinwiddie  of  Virginia 225 

After  a  portrait  by  Ramsay. 


LIST  OF    ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  MAPS  xxill 

P,\c ,  B 

Title-Page  of  Washington's  Journal 227 

A  Sketch  of  the  Field  of  Battle  at  Braddock's  Defeat    .     .  229 

From  a  contemporary  manuscript  in  the  Library  of  Harvard  University. 

Flax  of  Fort  Beausejour 230 

From  Mante's  History  of  the  Late  War  in  North  America. 

General  Monckton 232 

After  a  mezzotint  in  the  Library  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society. 

General  Johx  Winslow 234 

After  the  portrait  in  Pilgrim  Hall,  Plymouth,  Massachusetts. 

Map  of  Acadia  and  the  Adjacent  Islands.  1755 237 

Sir  William  Johnson ■   238 

After  the  portrait  by  Adams. 

Map  of  the  Region  of  Lake  George 239 

From  Documentary  History  oj  New  York. 

Ruins  of  Chateau  Bigot       -45 

From  a  photograph  by  Captain  YVurtelle. 

Parliament  Buildings,  Ottawa 246 

From  a  photograph. 

Quebec,  Chateau   Frontenac  and  the  Citadel 240 

From  a  photograph. 

The  Earl  of  Loudon 249 

After  the  portrait  by  Ramsay. 

Boscawen -53 

After  the  portrait  by  Reynolds. 

The  Siege  of  Louisburg,  1758 255 

From  a  picture  in  the  Lenox  Collection,  New  York  Public  Library. 

Amherst 257 

After  the  portrait  by  Reynolds. 

The  Country  round  Ticonderoga 259 

From  Documentary  History  oj  New  York. 

General  James  Wolfe 261 

After  the  engraved  portrait  by  Houstin. 

Bougainville 263 

After  a  cut  in  Bounechose's  Montcalm. 

The   Site  of   Quebec  and   the  Ground   occupied    during  the 

Siege  of   1759 2(-'5 

After  a  plan  in  The  Universal  Magazine,  London,  December,  1859. 

Louis  Joseph.  Marquis  de  Montcalm 268 

After  the  portrait  in  the  possession  of  his  descendants. 

Death  of  Wolfe 272 

From  the  painting  by  West. 


xxiv  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Page 

Major  Robert  Rogers 277 

After  a  mezzotint  by  an  unknown  engraver.   Published  in  London,  ( >ctober  i.  1776 

North  America  at  the  close  of  the  French  Wars,  1763      .     .  278 
General  Murray,  First  Governor  of  Quebec 280 

After  the  portrait  by  Ramsay. 

Settlements  on  the  Detroit  River 283 

From  Parkman's  Conspiracy  of  Pontine. 

Bouquet 289 

After  the  portrait  by  West. 

Return  of  the  English  Captives 291 

After  the  painting  by  West. 

Montreal 293 

After  a  print  in  the  New  York  Public  Library. 

Samuel  Hearne 297 

After  an  engraving  published  in  [796. 

General  Richard  Montgomery 301 

After  the  painting  by  Chappel. 

Map  of  Quebec  during  the  Siege  of  Congress  Troops     .     .     .  303 
Sir  Gcv  Carleton 3°7 

After  an  engraving  in  The  Political  Magazine.  June.  1782. 

Benedict  Arnold 309 

After  the  portrait  by  Tate. 

General  Haldi.mand 311 

After  the  portrait  by  Reynolds. 

Joseph  Brant 3'5 

After  the  portrait  by  Ames. 

Lieutenant  Governor  Simcoe 316 

After  an  engraving  in  Scadding's  Toronto  of  Old. 
Captain  Cook 320 

After  the  portrait  by  Dauce. 

Fort  Churchill  as  it  was  in   1777 320 

After  a  print  in  the  European  Magazine,  June.  17117. 

Totem  Poles,  British  Columbia .     .  320 

From  a  photograph. 

Cap iAiN  George  Vancouver 322 

After  the  portrait  by  Abbott. 

Nootka  Sound 3-3 

From  an  engraving  in  Vancouver's  Journal. 

Fori   Chippewyan,  Athabasca  Lake  ...........  325 

From  a  re<  enl  phi  >t<  igraph. 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  MAPS  xxv 

Page 

Alexander  Mackenzie 327 

After  the  portrait  by  Lawrence. 

Cause  of  a  Portage 329 

From  a  photograph. 

Simon  Fraser 331 

From  a  likeness  in  Morice's   The  History  of  the  Northern  Interior  of  British 
( 'ohtmbia. 

Astoria  in  1813 332 

From  a  cut  in  Franchere's  Narrative  of  a  Voyage. 

Map   of  West    Coast,   showing   the    Ogden   and    Ross   Explo- 
rations   332 

From  Laut's  Conquest  of  the  Great  North  West. 

General  Sir  James  Henry  Craig,  Governor  General  of  Canada. 

1 807—18 1 1 336 

After  an  engraving  at  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  Ontario. 

William  Hull 338 

After  the  portrait  by  Stuart,  with  autograph . 

Map  showing  the  Location  of  the  Military  Operations  on  the 

Detroit  River 340 

Map  showing  the   Location  of    the   Military    Operations   on 

the  Niagara  Frontier 342 

General  Brock     345 

After  a  portrait  in  the  possession  of  J.  A.  Macdonell  Esq.,  Alexandria.  ( tntario. 

Brock  Monument.  Queenston  Heights 347 

From  a  photograph. 

York  (Toronto)  Harbor 351 

From  Bouchette's  British  Dominions  in  North  - 1  merit  a. 

Fitzgibbons 357 

After  a  photograph  reproduced  in  Proceedings  and  Transactions  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  Canada,  1900. 

Laura  Secord 361 

From  Ontario  Historical  Society  Papers  and  Records. 

Two  Views  of  the  Battle  of  Lake  Erie 364 

From  prints  published  in  1S15 

Tecumseh 366 

After  the  drawing  by  Pierre  Le  Drie. 

De  Salap.erry 368 

After  a  portrait  in  Fannings  Taylor's  Portraits  of  British  .  Imericans. 

Sir  Gordon  Drummond 371 

After  an  engraving  at  Queen"s  University,  Kingston,  (  'ntario. 

Monument  at  Luxdy's  Lane 375 

From  a  photograph. 


XX vi  CANADA  :    THE    EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Page 

Selkirk .   381 

From  Ontario  Archives  Collection. 

Nelson  and  Haves  Rivers 384 

From  a  map  in  Robson's  Hudson  Bay. 

Fort  Garry,  Red  River  Settlement 387 

From  Ross'  Red  Rivet  Settlement. 

Fort  Douglas 388 

Alter  an  old  engraving. 

Sketch   of  the   City  of  Winnipeg,   showing  the   Sites   of  the 

Early  Forts 391 

From  Manitoba  Historical  Society 

Red  River  Settlement.  18 16-1820 392 

After  a  map  in  Amos'  Report  of  the   Trials  Relative  to  the  Destruction  of  the 
Earl  of  Selkirk' s  Settlement. 

Monument  to  Commemorate  the  Massacre  of  Seven  Oaks  .     .  397 

After  a  sketch. 

Tracking  on  Athabasca  River 401 

From  a  photograph. 

Plans  of  York  and  Prince  of  Wales  Forts 405 

From  a  plate  in  Robson's  Hudson  Bay. 

Sir  George  Simpson,  Governor  of  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  [820  406 
John  McLoughlin 40S 

After  a  likeness  in  Laut's  Conquest  of  the  Great  Northwest. 

Sir  John  Sherbrooke,  Governor  General  of  Canada,  r  S 1 6—  1 8 1 8  413 

After  an  engraving  at  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  ( (ntario. 

The  Fourth  Duke  of  Richmond.  Governor  General  of  Canada. 

1 81 8-1 8 19    .     „ 419 

After  an  engraving  at  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  Ontario. 

William  Lyon  Mackenzie 421 

After  a  likeness  in  Lindsey's  Life  and  Times  of  Mackenzie. 

Allan   McNab 423 

After  the  portrait  in  the  Speaker's  Chambers,  Ottawa. 

Louis  J.  Papineau 428 

After  a  likeness  in  Fannings  Taylor's  British  Americans. 

Sir  John  Colborne,  Governor  General  of  Canada.    [838    [841    430 

After  an  engraving  at  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  ( )ntario. 

Lord  Durham,  Special  Commissioner  to  Canada,  [838.     .     .     .  432 

After  an  engraving  at  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  1  Intario. 
John  A.  Macdonald 435 

From  a  photograph. 

Fathers  of  Confederation,  1867        436 

From  the  painting  by  Ilariss. 


CANADA 

THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


CHAPTER  I 

FROM  1000  TO  1000 

Who  first  found  Canada  ?  As  many  legends  surround  the 
beginnings  of  empire  in  the  North  as  cling  to  the  story  of 
early  Rome. 

When  Leif,  son  of  Earl  Erie,  the  Red,  came  down  from 
Greenland  with  his  Viking  crew,  which  of  his  bearded  seamen 
in  Arctic  furs  leaned  over  the  dragon  prow  for  sight  of  the  lone 
new  land,  fresh  as  if  washed  by  the  dews  of  earth's  first  morn- 
ing ?  Was  it  Thorwald,  Leif's  brother,  or  the  mother  of  Snorri, 
first  white  child  born  in  America,  who  caught  first  glimpse 
through  the  flying  spray  of  Labrador's  domed  hills,  —  "  Hellu- 
land,  place  of  slaty  rocks " ;  and  of  Nova  Scotia's  wooded 
meadows,  —  "  Markland  "  ;  and  Rhode  Island's  broken  vine-clad 
shore,  —  "  Vinland  "  ?  The  question  cannot  be  answered.  All  is 
as  misty  concerning  that  Viking  voyage  as' the  legends  of  old 
Norse  gods. 

Leif,  the  Lucky,  son  of  Earl  Eric,  the  outlaw,  coasts  back  to 
Greenland  with  his  bold  sea  rovers.    This  was  in  the  year  iooo. 

For  ten  years  they  came  riding  southward  in  their  rude- 
planked  ships  of  the  dragon  prow,  those  Norse  adventurers  ; 
and  Thorwald,  Leif's  brother,  is  first  of  the  pathfinders  in 
America  to  lose  his  life  in  battle  with  the  "  Skraelings "  or 
Indians.  Thornstein,  another  brother,  sails  south  in  1005  with 
Gudrid,   his  wife ;    but   a    roaring    nor'easter   tears    the    piping 

1 


2       CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

sails  to  tatters,  and  Thornstein  dies  as  his  frail  craft  scuds 
before  the  blast.  Back  comes  Gudrid  the  very  next  year,  with 
a  new  husband  and  a  new  ship  and  two  hundred  colonists  to 
found  a  kingdom  in  the  "  Land  of  the  Vine."  At  one  place  they 
come  to  rocky  islands,  where  birds  flock  in  such  myriads  it  is 
impossible  to  land  without  trampling  nests.  Were  these  the 
rocky  islands  famous  for  birds  in  the  St.  Lawrence  ?  On  another 
coast  are  fields  of  maize  and  forests  entangled  with  grapevines. 
Was  this  part  of  modern  New  England  ?  On  Vinland  —  wher- 
ever it  was  —  Gudrid,  the  Norse  woman,  disembarks  her  colonists. 
All  goes  well  for  three  years.  Fish  and  fowl  are  in  plenty. 
Cattle   roam   knee-deep  in   pasturage.     Indians    trade   furs  for 


VIKING   SHIP   RECENTLY   DISCOVERED 


scarlet  cloth  and  the  Norsemen  dole  out  their  barter  in  strips 
narrow  as  a  little  finger  ;  but  all  beasts  that  roam  the  wilds  are 
free  game  to  Indian  hunters.  The  cattle  begin  to  disappear,  the 
Indians  to  lurk  armed  along  the  paths  to  the  water  springs. 
The  woods  are  full-  of  danger.  Any  bush  may  conceal  painted 
foe.  Men  as  well  as  cattle  lie  dead  with  telltale  arrow  sticking 
from  a  wound.  The  Norsemen  begin  to  hate  these  shadowy, 
lonely,  mournful  forests.  They  long  for  wild  winds  and  track- 
less seas  and  open  world.  Fur-clad,  what  do  they  care  for  the 
cold  ?  Greenland  with  its  rolling  drifts  is  safer  hunting  than 
this  forest  world.  What  glory,  doomed  prisoners  between  the 
woods  and  the  sea  within  the  shadow  of  the  great  forests  and  a 
great  fear  ?  The  smell  of  wildwoud  things,  of  flower  banks,  of 
fern  mold,  came  dank  and  unwholesome  to  these  men.    Their 


EARLY  VOYAGES  TO  AMERICA  3 

nostrils  were  for  the  whiff  of  the  sea ;  and  every  sunset  tipped 
the  waves  with  fire  where  they  longed  to  sail.  And  the  shadow  of 
the  fear  fell  on  Gudrid.  Ordering  the  vessels  loaded  with  timber 
good  for  masts  and  with  wealth  of  furs,  she  gathered  up  her  people 
and  led  them  from  the  "  Land  of  the  Vine  "  back  to  Greenland. 
Where  was  Vinland  ?  Was  it  Canada  ?  The  answer  is  unknown. 
It  was  south  of  Labrador.  It  is  thought  to  have  been  Rhode 
Island  ;  but  certainly,  passing  north  and  south,  the  Norse  were 
the  first  white  men  to  see  Canada. 


Th"'A  ^ 


L.  t'/\r-x. 


Did  some  legend,  dim  as  a  forgotten  dream,  come  down  to 
Columbus  in  1492  of  the  Norsemen's  western  land  ?  All  sailors 
of  Europe  yearly  fished  in  Iceland.  Had  one  of  Columbus's  crew 
heard  sailor  yarns  of  the  new  land  ?  If  so,  Columbus  must  have 
thought  the  new  land  part  of  Asia  ;  for  ever  since  Marco  Polo 
had  come  from  China,  Europe  had  dreamed  of  a  way  to  Asia 
by  the  sea.  What  with  Portugal  and 
Spain  dividing  the  New  World,  all  the 
nations  of  Europe  suddenly  awakened 
to  a  passion  for  discovery. 

There  were  still  lands  to  the  north, 
which  Portugal  and  Spain  had  not 
found, — lands  where  pearls  and  gold 
might  abound.  At  Bristol  in  England 
dwelt  with  his  sons  John  Cabot,  the 
Genoese  master  mariner,  well  ac- 
quainted with  Eastern  trade.  Henry 
VII  commissions  him  on  a  voyage  of 
discovery  —  an  empty  honor,  the  King  to  have  one  fifth  of  all 
profit,  Cabot  to  bear  all  expense.  The  Matthew  ships  from 
Bristol  with  a  crew  of  eighteen  in  May  of  1497.  North  and  west 
sails  the  tumbling  craft  two  thousand  miles.  Colder  grows  the 
air,  stiffer  the  breeze  in  the  bellying  sails,  till  the  Matthew's 
crew  are  shivering  on  decks  amid  fleets  of  icebergs  that  drift 
from  Greenland  in  May  and  June.  This  is  no  realm  of  spices 
and  gold.    Land  looms  through  the  mist  the  last  week  in  June, 


DIVISION  OF  THE  NEW  WORLD 
BETWEEN  SPAIN  AND  PORTUGAL 


4       CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

rocky,  surf-beaten,  lonely  as  earth's  ends,  with  never  a  sound  but 
the  scream  of  the  gulls  and  the  moan  of  the  restless  water-fret 
along  endless  white  reefs.  Not  a  living  soul  did  the  English 
sailors  see.  Weak  in  numbers,  disappointed  in  the  rocky  land, 
they  did  not  wait  to  hunt  for  natives.  An  English  flag  was  hastily 
unfurled  and  possession  taken  of  this  Empire  of  the  North  for 
England.  The  woods  of  America  for  the  first  time  rang  to  the 
chopper.  Wood  and  water  were  taken  on,  and  the  Matthew  had 
anchored  in  Bristol  by  the  first  week  of  August.    Neither  gold 


t m  & 


A   TYPICAL   "HOLE    IN   THE   WALL"   AT    "KITTY    VIDDY,"    NEAR 
ST.  JOHN'S,  NEWFOUNDLAND 


nor  a  way  to  China  had  Cabot  found  ;  but  he  had  accomplished 
three  things  :  he  had  found  that  the  New  World  was  not  a  part 
of  Asia,  as  Spain  thought  ;  he  had  found  the  continent  itself; 
and  he  had  given  England  the  right  to  claim  new  dominion. 

England  went  mad  over  Cabot.  He  was  granted  the  title  of 
admiral  and  allowed  to  dress  in  silks  as  a  nobleman.  King  Henry 
gave  him  ^10,  equal  to  $500  of  modern  money,  and  a  pension  of 
,£20,  equal  to  $1000  to-day.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  modern 
writers   attribute  an   air  of   romance   to  these  old    pathfinders, 


VOYAGES  OF  THE  CABOTS 


which  they  would  have  scorned;  but  "  Zuan  Cabot,"  as  the 
people  called  him,  wore  the  halo  of  glory  with  glee.  To  his 
barber  he  presented  an  island  kingdom  ;  to  a  poor  monk  he 
gave  a  bishopric.  His  son,  Sebastian,  sailed  out  the  next  year 
with  a  fleet  of  six  ships  and  three  hundred  men,  coasting  north 
as  far  as  Greenland,  south  as  far  as  Carolina,  so  rendering  doubly 
secure  England's  title  to  the  North,  and  bringing  back  news  of 
the  great  cod  banks  that  were  to  lure  French  and  Spanish  and 
English  fishermen  to 
Newfoundland  for  hun- 
dreds of  years. 

Where  was  Cabot's 
landfall  ? 

I  chanced  to  be  in 
Bonavista  Bay,  New- 
foundland, shortly  after 
the  400th  anniversary  of 
Cabot's  voyage.  King's 
Cove,  landlocked  as  a 
hole  in  a  wall,  mountains 
meeting  sky  line,  pre- 
sented on  one  flat  rock 
in  letters  the  size  of  a 
house  claim  that  it  was 
here  John  Cabot  sent  his 
sailors  ashore  to  plant 
the  flag  on  cairn  of  bowl- 
ders ;  but  when  I  came  back  from  Newfoundland  by  way  of  Cape 
Breton,  I  found  the  same  claim  there.  For  generations  the  tradi- 
tion has  been  handed  down  from  father  to  son  among  Newfound- 
land fisher  folk  that  as  Cabot's  vessel,  pitching  and  rolling  to  the 
tidal  bore,  came  scudding  into  King's  Cove,  rock  girt  as  an  inland 
lake,  the  sailors  shouted  "Bona  Vista  —  Beautiful  View";  but 
Cape  Breton  has  her  legend,  too.  It  was  Cabot's  report  of  the 
cod  banks  that  brought  the  Breton  fishermen  out,  whose  name 
Cape  Breton  bears. 


SEBASTIAN   CABOT 


6      CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

As  Christopher  Columbus  spurred  England  to  action,  so 
Cabot   now  spurred   Portugal  and  Spain  and   France. 

Gaspar  Cortereal  comes  in  1500  from  Portugal  on  Cabot's 
tracks  to  that  land  of  "slaty  rocks"  which  the  Norse  saw  long 
ago.  The  Gulf  Stream  beats  the  iron  coast  with  a  boom  of 
thunder,  and  the  tide  swirl  meets  the  ice  drift;  and  it  isn't  a 
land  to  make  a  treasure  hunter  happy  till  there  wander  down  to 
the  shore  Montaignais  Indians,  strapping  fellows,  a  head  taller 
than  the  tallest  Portuguese.  Cortereal  lands,  lures  fifty  savages 
on  board,  carries  them  home  as  slaves  for  Portugal's  galley  ships, 
and  names  the  country  —  "  land  of  laborers  "  —  Labrador.  .  He 
sailed  again,  the  next  year  ;  but  never  returned  to  Portugal. 
The  seas  swallowed  his  vessel  ;  or  the  tide  beat  it  to  pieces 
against  Labrador's  rocks ;  or  those  Indians  slaked  their  ven- 
geance by  cutting  the  throats  of  master  and  crew. 

And  Spain  was  not  idle.  In  15  13  Balboa  leads  his  Spanish 
treasure  seekers  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  discovers  the 
Pacific,  and  realizes  what  Cabot  has  already  proved  —  that  the 
New  World  is  not  a  part  of  Asia.  Thereupon,  in  swelling  words, 
he  takes  possession  of  "  earth,  air,  and  water  from  the  Pole  Arctic 
to  the  Pole  Antarctic"  for  Spain.  A  few  years  later  Magellan 
finds  his  way  to  Asia  round  South  America  ;  but  this  path  by 
sea  is  too  long. 

From  France,  Normans  and  Bretons  are  following  Cabot's 
tracks  to  Newfoundland,  to  Labrador,  to  Cape  Breton,  "  quhar 
men  goeth  a-fishing  "  in  little  cockleshell  boats  no  bigger  than 
three-masted  schooner,  with  black-painted  dories  dragging  in  tow 
or  roped  on  the  rolling  decks.  Absurd  it  is,  but  with  no  blare 
of  trumpets  or  royal  commissions,  with  no  guide  but  the  wander 
spirit  that  lured  the  old  Vikings  over  the  rolling  seas,  these 
grizzled  peasants  flock  from  France,  cross  the  Atlantic,  and 
scatter  over  what  were  then  chartless  waters  from  the  Gulf  of 
St.  Lawrence  to  the  Grand  Banks. 

Just  as  they  may  be  seen  to-day  bounding  over  the  waves  in 
their  little  black  dories,  hauling  in  .  .  .  hauling  in  the  endless 
line,  or  jigging  for  squid,  or  lying  at  ease  at  the  noonday  hour 


THE   FRENCH    FISHER   FOLK  7 

singing  some  old  land  ballad  while  the  kettle  of  cod  and  pork 
boils  above  a  chip  fire  kindled  on  the  stones  used  as  ballast  in 
their  boats  —  so  came  the  French  fisher  folk  three  years  after 
Cabot  had  discovered  the  Grand  Banks.  Denys  of  Honfleur  has 
led  his  fishing  fleet  all  over  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  by  1506. 
So  has  Aubert  of  Dieppe.  By  15  17,  fifty  French  vessels  yearly 
fish  off  the  coast  of  New-Found-Land.  By  15  18  one  Baron  de 
Lery  has  formed  the  project  of  colonizing  this  new  domain  ;  but 
the  baron's  ship  unluckily  came  from  the  Grand  Banks  to  port 
on  that  circular  bank  of  sand  known  as  Sable  Island  —  from 
twenty  to  thirty  miles  as  the  tide  shifts  the  sand,  with  grass 
waist  high  and  a  swampy  lake  in  the  middle.  The  Baron  de 
Lery  unloads  his  stock  on  Sable  Island  and  roves  the  sea  for  a 
better  port. 

The  King  of  France,  meanwhile,  resents  the  Pope  dividing 
the  New  World  between  Spain  and  Portugal.  "  I  should  like  to 
see  the  clause  in  Father  Adam's  will  that  gives  the  whole  earth 
to  you,"  he  sent  word  to  his  brother  kings.  Verrazano,  sea  rover 
of  Florence,  is  commissioned  to  explore  the  New  World  seas  ; 
but  Verrazano  goes  no  farther  north  in  1 524  than  Newfoundland, 
and  when  he  comes  on  a  second  voyage  he  is  lost  —  some  say 
hanged  as  a  pirate  by  the  Spaniards  for  intruding  on  their  seas. 

In  spite  of  the  loss  of  the  King's  sea  rover,  the  fisher  folk  of 
France  continue  coming  in  their  crazy  little  schooners,  continue 
fishing  in  the  fogs  of  the  Grand  Banks  from  their  rocking  black- 
planked  dories,  continue  scudding  for  shelter  from  storm  .  .  .here, 
there,  everywhere ;  into  the  south  shore  of  Newfoundland  ;  into 
the  long  arms  of  the  sea  at  Cape  Breton,  dyed  at  sundawn  and 
sunset  by  such  floods  of  golden  light,  these  arms  of  the  sea  become 
known  as  Bras  d'Or  Lakes  —  Lakes  of  Gold  ;  into  the  rock-girt 
lagoons  of  Gaspe  ;  into  the  holes  in  the  wall  of  Labrador  .  .  .  ; 
till  there  presently  springs  up  a  secret  trade  in  furs  between 
the  fishing  fleet  and  the  Indians.  The  King  of  France  is  not  to 
be  balked  by  one  failure.  "What,"  he  asked,  "are  my  royal 
brothers  to  have  all  America  ?  "  Among  the  Bank  fishermen 
were  many  sailors  of  St.  Malo.    Jacques  Cartier,   master  pilot, 


8 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OE  THE  NORTH 


now  forty  years  of  age,  must  have  learned  strange  yarns  of  the 
New  World  from  harbor  folk.  Indeed,  he  may  have  served  as 
sailor  on  the  Banks.  Him  the  King  chose,  with  one  hundred 
and  twenty  men  and  two  vessels,  in  1534,  to  go  on  a  voyage 

of  discovery  to 
the  great  sea 
w  here  men 
fished.  Cartier 
was  to  find  if 
the  sea  led 
to  China  and 
to  take  posses- 
sion of  the 
countries  for 
France.  Cap- 
tain, masters, 
men,  march  to 
the  cathedral 
and  swear  fidel- 
ity to  the  King. 
The  vessels 
sail  on  April 
20,  with  the 
fishing  fleet. 

Piping  winds 
carry  them  for- 
ward at  a  clip- 
per pace.  The 
sails  scatter 
and  disappear 
over  the  watery 

sky  line.  In  twenty  days  Cartier  is  off  that  bold  headland  with 
the  hole  in  the  wall  called  Bona  Vista.  Ice  is  running  as  it  always 
runs  there  in  spring.  What  with  wind  and  ice,  Cartier  deems  it 
prudent  to  look  for  shelter.  Sheering  south  among  the  scarps 
at  Catalina,  where  the  whales  blow  and  the  seals  float  in  thousands 


CARTIER'S  FIRST  VOYAGE  9 

on  the  ice  pans,  Cartier  anchors  to  take  on  wood  and  water.  For 
ten  days  he  watches  the  white  whirl  driving  south.  Then  the 
water  clears  and  his  sails  swing  to  the  wind,  and  he  is  off  to 
the  north,  along  that  steel-gray  shore  of  rampart  rock,  between 
the  white-slab  islands  and  the  reefy  coast.  Birds  are  in  such 
flocks  off  Funk  Island  that  the  men  go  ashore  to  hunt,  as  the 
fisher  folk  anchor  for  bird  shooting  to-day. 

Higher  rises  the  rocky  sky  line  ;  barer  the  shore  wall,  with 
never  a  break  to  the  eye  till  you  turn  some  jagged  peak  and 


WHERE    THE    FISHER    HAMLETS   NOW   NESTLE,  NEWFOUNDLAND 


come  on  one  of  those  snug  coves  where  the  white  fisher  ham- 
lets now  nestle.  Reefs  white  as  lace  fret  line  the  coast.  Lonely 
as  death,  bare  as  a  block  of  marble,  Gull  Island  is  passed  where 
another  crew  in  later  years  perish  as  castaways.  Gray  finback 
whales  flounder  in  schools.  The  lazy  humpbacks  lounge  round 
and  round  the  ships,  eyeing  the  keels  curiously.  A  polar  bear  is 
seen  on  an  ice  pan.  Then  the  ships  come  to  those  lonely  har- 
bors north  of  Newfoundland  —  Griguet  and  Ouirpon  and  Ha- 
Ha-Bay,  rock  girt,  treeless,  always  windy,  desolate,  with  an 
eternal  moaning  of  the  tide  over  the  fretful  reefs. 


IO  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

To  the  north,  off  a  little  seaward,  is  Belle  Isle.  Here,  storm 
or  calm,  the  ocean  tide  beats  with  fury  unceasing  and  weird 
reechoing"  of  baffled  waters  like  the  scream  of  lost  souls.  It  was 
sunset  when  I  was  on  a  coastal  ship  once  that  anchored  off  Belle 
Isle,  and  I  realized  how  natural  it  must  have  been  for  Cartier's 
superstitious  sailors  to  mistake  the  moan  of  the  sea  for  wild 
cries  of  distress,  and  the  smoke  of  the  spray  for  fires  of  the 
inferno.  To  French  sailors  Belle  Isle  became  Isle  of  Demons. 
In  the  half  light  of  fog  or  night,  as  the  wave  wash  rises  and 
falls,  you  can  almost  see  white  arms  clutching  the  rock. 

As  usual,  bad  weather  caught  the  ships  in  Belle  Isle  Straits. 
Till  the  9th  of  June  brown  fog  held  Cartier.  When  it  lifted 
the  tide  had  borne  his  ships  across  the  straits  to  Labrador  at 
Castle  Island,  Chateau  Bay.  Labrador  was  a  ruder  region  than 
Newfoundland.  Far  as  eye  could  scan  were  only  domed  rocks 
like  petrified  billows,  dank  valleys  moss-grown  and  scrubby,  hill- 
sides bare  as  slate.  "This  land  should  not  be  called  earth" 
remarked  Cartier.  "It  is  flint !  Faith,  I  think  this  is  the  region 
God  gave  Cain  !  "  If  this  were  Cain's  realm,  his  descendants 
were  "  men  of  might  ";  for  when  the  Montaignais,  tall  and 
straight  as  mast  poles,  came  down  to  the  straits,  Cartier's  little 
scrub  sailors  thought  them  giants.  Promptly  Cartier  planted 
the  cross  and  took  possession  of  Labrador  for  France.  As  the 
boats  coasted  westward  the  shore  rock  turned  to  sand,  —  huge 
banks  and  drifts  and  hillocks  of  white  sand,  —  so  that  the  place 
where  the  ships  struck  across  for  the  south  shore  became  known 
as  Blanc  Sablon  (White  Sand).  Squalls  drove  Cartier  up  the 
Bay  of  Islands  on  the  west  shore  of  Newfoundland,  and  he  was 
amazed  to  find  this  arm  of  the  sea  cut  the  big  island  almost  in 
two.  Wooded  mountains  flanked  each  shore.  A  great  river, 
amber  with  forest  mold,  came  rolling  down  a  deep  gorge.  But 
it  was  not  Newfoundland  Cartier  had  come  to  explore  ;  it  was 
the  great  inland  sea  to  the  west,  and  to  the  west  he  sailed. 

July  found  him  off  another  kind  of  coast  —  New  Brunswick 
—  forested  and  rolling  with  fertile  meadows.  Down  a  broad 
shallow  stream — the  Miramichi  —  paddled  Indians  waving  furs 


CARTIER'S   FIRST  VOYAGE  II 

for  trade  ;  but  wind  threatened  a  stranding  in  the  shallows. 
Cartier  turned  to  follow  the  coast  north.  Denser  grew  the 
forests,  broader  the  girths  of  the  great  oaks,  heavier  the  vines, 
hotter  the  midsummer  weather.  This  was  no  land  of  Cain.  It 
was  a  new  realm  for  France.  While  Cartier  lay  at  anchor  north 
of  the  Miramichi,  Indian  canoes  swarmed  round  the  boats  at 
such  close  quarters  the  whites  had  to  discharge  a  musket  to 
keep  the  three  hundred  savages  from  scrambling  on  decks. 
Two  seamen  then  landed  to  leave  presents  of  knives  and  coats. 
The  Indians  shrieked  delight,  and,  following  back  to  the  ships, 
threw  fur  garments  to  the  decks  till  literally  naked.  On  the 
1 8th  of  July  the  heat  was  so  intense  that  Cartier  named  the 
waters  Bay  of  Chaleur.  Here  were  more  Indians.  At  first 
the  women  dashed  to  hiding  in  the  woods,  while  the  painted 
warriors  paddled  out ;  but  when  Cartier  threw  more  presents 
into  the  canoes,  women  and  children  swarmed  out  singing"  a 
welcome.  The  Bay  of  Chaleur  promised  no  passage  west,  so  Car- 
tier  again  spread  his  sails  to  the  wind  and  coasted  northward. 
The  forests  thinned.  Towards  Gaspe  the  shore  became  rocky 
and  fantastic.  The  inland  sea  led  westward,  but  the  season  was 
far  advanced.  It  was  decided  to  return  and  report  to  the  King. 
Landing  at  Gaspe  on  July  24,  Cartier  erected  a  cross  thirty  feet 
high  with  the  words  emblazoned  on  a  tablet,  Vive  Ic  Roi  de 
France.  Standing  about  him  were  the  painted  natives  of  the 
wilderness,  one  old  chief  dressed  in  black  bearskin  gesticulating 
protest  against  the  cross  till  Cartier  explained  by  signs  that  the 
whites  would  come  again.  Two  savages  were  invited  on  board. 
By  accident  or  design,  as  they  stepped  on  deck,  their  skiff  was 
upset  and  set  adrift.  The  astonished  natives  found  themselves 
in  the  white  men's  power,  but  food  and  gay  clothing  allayed 
fear.  They  willingly  consented  to  accompany  Cartier  to  France. 
Somewhere  north  of  Gaspe  the  smoke  of  the  French  fishing 
fleet  was  seen  ascending  from  the  sea,  as  the  fishermen  rocked 
in  their  dories  cooking  the  midday  meal. 

August  9  prayers  are  held  for  safe  return  at  Blanc  Sablon,  — 
port  of  the  white,  white  sand,  —  and  by  September  5  Cartier  is 


12  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

home  in  St.  Malo,  a  rabble  of  grizzled  sailor  folk  chattering  a 
welcome  from  the  wharf  front. 

He  had  not  found  passage  to  China,  but  he  had  found  a  king- 
dom ;  and  the  two  Indians  told  marvelous  tales  of  the  Great  River 
to  the  West,  where  they  lived,  of  mines,  of  vast  unclaimed  lands. 

Cartier  had  been  home  only  a  month  when  the  Admiral  of 
France  ordered  him  to  prepare  for  another  voyage.  He  him- 
self was  to  command  the  Grand  Hcrmine,  Captain  Jalobert  the 
Little  Hermine,  and  Captain  Le  Breton  the  Emerillon.  Young 
gentlemen  adventurers  were  to  accompany  the  explorers.  The 
ships  were  provisioned  for  two  years  ;  and  on  May  16,  1535,  all 
hands  gathered  to  the  cathedral,  where  sins  were  confessed,  the 
archbishop's  blessing  received,  and  Cartier  given  a  Godspeed 
to  the  music  of  full  choirs  chanting  invocation.  Three  days 
later  anchors  were  hoisted.  Cannon  boomed.  Sails  swung  out  ; 
and  the  vessels  sheered  away  from  the  roadstead  while  cheers 
rent  the  air. 

Head  winds  held  the  ship  back.  Furious  tempests  scattered 
the  fleet.  It  was  July  17  before  Cartier  sighted  the  gull  islands 
of  Newfoundland  and  swung  up  north  with  the  tide  through  the 
brown  fogs  of  Belle  Isle  Straits  to  the  shining  gravel  of  Blanc 
Sablon.  Here  he  waited  for  the  other  vessels,  which  came  on 
the  26th. 

The  two  Indians  taken  from  Gaspe  now  began  to  recog- 
nize the  headlands  of  their  native  country,  telling  Cartier  the 
first  kingdom  along  the  Great  River  was  Saguenay,  the  second 
Canada,  the  third  Hochelaga.  Near  Mingan,  Cartier  anchored 
to  claim  the  land  for  France  ;  and  he  named  the  great  waters 
St.  Lawrence  because  it  was  on  that  saint's  day  he  had  gone 
ashore.  The  north  side  of  Anticosti  was  passed,  and  the  first 
of  September  saw  the  three  little  ships  drawn  up  within  the 
shadow  of  that  somber  gorge  cut  through  sheer  rock  where 
the  Saguenay  rolls  sullenly  out  to  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  moun- 
tains presented  naked  rock  wall.  Beyond,  rolling  back  .  .  .  roll- 
ing back  to  an   impenetrable  wilderness  .  .  .  were  the  primeval 


CARTIER'S   SECOND   VOYAGE  13 

forests.  Through  the  canyon  flowed  the  river,  dark  and  ominous 
and  hushed.  The  men  rowed  out  in  small  boats  to  fish  but  were 
afraid  to  land. 

As  the  ships  advanced  up  the  St.  Lawrence  the  seamen  could 
scarcely  believe  they  were  on  a  river.  The  current  rolled  sea- 
ward in  a  silver  flood.  In  canoes  paddling  shyly  out  from  the 
north  shore  Cartier's  two  Indians  suddenly  recognized  old 
friends,  and  whoops  of  delight  set  the  echoes  ringing. 

Keeping  close  to  the  north  coast,  russet  in  the  September 
sun,  Cartier  slipped  up  that  long  reach  of  shallows  abreast  a 
low-shored  wooded  island  so  laden  with  grapevines  he  called  it 
Isle  Bacchus.    It  was  the  Island  of  Orleans. 

Then  the  ships  rounded  westward,  and  there  burst  to  view 
against  the  high  rocks  of  the  north  shore  the  white-plumed  shim- 
mering cataract  of  Montmorency  leaping  from  precipice  to  river 
bed  with  roar  of  thunder. 

Cartier  had  anchored  near  the  west  end  of  Orleans  Island 
when  there  came  paddling  out  with  twelve  canoes,  Donnacona, 
great  chief  of  Stadacona,  whose  friendship  was  won  on  the  instant 
by  the  tales  Cartier's  Indians  told  of  France  and  all  the  marvels 
of  the  white  man's  world. 

Cartier  embarked  with  several  young  officers  to  go  back  with 
the  chief  ;  and  the  three  vessels  were  cautiously  piloted  up  little 
St.  Charles  River,  which  joins  the  St.  Lawrence  below  the  mod- 
ern city  of  Quebec.  Women  dashed  to  their  knees  in  water  to 
welcome  ashore  these  gayly  dressed  newcomers  with  the  gold- 
braided  coats  and  clanking  swords.  Crossing  the  low  swamp,  now 
Lower  Town,  Quebec,  the  adventurers  followed  a  path  through 
the  forest  up  a  steep  declivity  of  sliding  stones  to  the  clear  high 
table-land  above,  and  on  up  the  rolling  slopes  to  the  airy  heights 
of  Cape  Diamond  overlooking  the  St.  Lawrence  like  the  turret 
of  some  castle  above  the  sea.  Did  a  French  soldier,  removing 
his  helmet  to  wipe  away  the  sweat  of  his  arduous  climb,  cry  out 
"Que  bee"  (What  a  peak  !)  as  he  viewed  the  magnificent  pano- 
rama of  river  and  valley  and  mountain  rolling  from  his  feet;  or 
did  their  Indian  guide  point  to  the  water  of  the  river  narrowing  like 


H 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


a  strait  below  the  peak,  and  mutter  in  native  tongue,  "  Quebec  " 
(The  strait)  ?  Legend  gives  both  explanations  of  the  name. 
To  the  east  Cartier  could  see  far  down  the  silver  flood  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  halfway  to  Saguenay  ;  to  the  south,  far  as  the  dim 
mountains  of  modern  New  Hampshire.  What  would  the  King 
of  France  have  thought  if  he  could  have  realized  that  his  adven- 
turers had  found  a  province  three  times  the  size  of  England, 
one  third  larger  than  France,  one  third  larger  than  Germany  ? 
And  they  had  as  yet  reached  only  one  small  edge  of  Canada, 
namely  Quebec. 

Heat  haze  of  Indian  summer  trembled  over  the  purple  hills. 
Below,  the  river  quivered  like  quicksilver.  In  the  air  was  the 
nutty  odor  of  dried  grasses,  the  clear  tang  of  coming  frosts 
crystal  to  the  taste  as  water  ;  and  if  one  listened,  almost  listened 
to  the  silence,  one  could  hear  above  the  lapping  of  the  tide  the 
far  echo  of  the  cataract.  To  Cartier  the  scene  might  have  been 
the  airy  fabric  of  some  dream  world  ;  but  out  of  dreams  of  earth's 
high  heroes  are  empires  made. 

But  the  Indians  had  told  of  that  other  kingdom,  Hochelaga. 
Hither  Cartier  had  determined  to  go,  when  three  Indians  dressed 
as  devils  —  faces  black  as  coals,  heads  in  masks,  brows  adorned 
with  elk  horns  —  came  gyrating  and  howling  out  of  the  woods 
on  the  mountain  side,  making  wild  signals  to  the  white  men 
encamped  on  the  St.  Charles.  Cartier's  interpreters  told  him 
this  was  warning  from  the  Indian  god  not  to  ascend  the  river. 
The  god  said  Hochelaga  was  a  realm  of  snow,  where  all  white 
men  would  perish.  It  was  a  trick  to  keep  the  white  men's  trade 
for  themselves. 

Cartier  laughed. 

"Tell  them  their  god  is  an  old  fool,"  he  said.  "Christ  is  to 
be  our  guide."' 

The  Indians  wanted  to  know  if  Cartier  had  spoken  to  his  God 
about  it. 

"  No,"  answered  Cartier.  Then,  not  to  be  floored,  he  added, 
"but  my  priest  has." 


CARTIER'S  SECOND   VOYAGE 


15 


With  three  cheers,  fifty  young  gentlemen  sheered  out  on 
September  19  from  the  St.  Charles  on  the  Emerillon  to  accom- 
pany Cartier  to  Hochelaga. 

Beyond  Quebec  the  St.  Lawrence  widened  like  a  lake.  Sep- 
tember frosts  had  painted  the  maples  in  flame.  Song  birds,  the 
glory  of  the  St.  Lawrence  valley,  were  no  longer  to  be  heard, 
but  the  waters  literally  swarmed  with  duck  and  the  forests  were 
alive  with  partridge.  Where  to-day  nestle  church  spires  and 
whitewashed  hamlets  were  the  birch  wigwams  and  night  camp 


ANCIENT   HOCHELAGA 
(From  Ramusio) 

fires  of  Indian  hunters.  Wherever  Cartier  went  ashore,  Indians 
rushed  knee-deep  to  carry  him  from  the  river  ;  and  one  old  chief 
at  Richelieu  signified  his  pleasure  by  presenting  the  whites  with 
two  Indian  children.  Zigzagging  leisurely,  now  along  the  north 
shore,  now  along  the  south,  pausing  to  hunt,  pausing  to  explore, 
pausing  to  powwow  with  the  Indians,  the  adventurers  came,  on 
September  28,  to  the  reedy  shallows  and  breeding  grounds  of 
wild  fowl  at  Lake  St.  Peter.  Here  they  were  so  close  ashore 
the  Emerillon  caught  her  keel  in  the  weeds,  and  the  explorers 
left  her  aground  under  guard  and  went  forward  in  rowboats. 


16  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

"  Was  this  the  way  to  Hochelaga?"  the  rowers  asked  Indians 
paddling"  past. 

"  Yes,  three  more  sleeps,"  the  Indians  answered  by  the  sign 
of  putting  the  face  with  closed  eyes  three  times  against  their 
hand;  "three  more  nights  would  bring  Cartier  to  Hochelaga"; 
and  on  the  night  of  the  2cl  of  October  the  rowboats,  stopped 
by  the  rapids,  pulled  ashore  at  Hochelaga  amid  a  concourse  of 
a  thousand  amazed  savages. 

It  was  too  late  to  follow  the  trail  through  the  darkening 
forest  to  the  Indian  village.  Cartier  placed  the  soldiers  in  their 
burnished  armor  on  guard  and  spent  the  night  watching  the 
council  fires  gleam  from  the  mountain.  And  did  some  soldier 
standing  sentry,  watching  the  dark  shadow  of  the  hill  creep 
longer  as  the  sun  went  down,  cry  out,  "  Mont  Royal,"  so  that 
the  place  came  to  be  known  as  Montreal  ? 

At  peep  of  dawn,  while  the  mist  is  still  smoking  up  from  the 
river,  Cartier  marshals  twenty  seamen  with  officers  in  military 
line,  and,  to  the  call  of  trumpet,  marches  along  the  forest  trail 
behind  Indian  guides  for  the  tribal  fort.  Following  the  river, 
knee-deep  in  grass,  the  French  ascend  the  hill  now  known  as 
Notre  Dame  Street,  disappear  in  the  hollow  where  flows  a  stream, 
—  modern  Craig  Street,  —  then  climb  steeply  through  the  forests 
to  the  plain  now  known  as  the  great  thoroughfare  of  Sherbrooke 
Street.  Halfway  up  they  come  on  open  fields  of  maize  or  Indian 
corn.  Here  messengers  welcome  them  forward,  women  singing, 
tom-tom  beating,  urchins  stealing  fearful  glances  through  the 
woods.  The  trail  ends  at  a  fort  with  triple  palisades  of  high 
trees,  walls  separated  by  ditches  and  roofed  for  defense,  with 
one  carefully  guarded  narrow  gate.  Inside  are  fifty  large  wig- 
wams, the  oblong  bark  houses  of  the  Huron-Iroquois,  each  fifty 
feet  long,  with  the  public  square  in  the  center,  or  what  we  would 
call  the  courtyard. 

It  needs  no  trick  of  fancy  to  call  up  the  scene  —  the  wind- 
ing of  the  trumpet  through  the  forest  silence,  the  amazement 
of  the  Indian  drummers,  the  arrested  frenzy  of  the  dancers,  the 
sunrise  turning  burnished  armor  to  fire,  the  clanking  of  swords, 


CARTIER'S  SECOND   VOYAGE  17 

the  wheeling  of  the  soldiers  as  they  fall  in  place,  helmets  doffed, 
round  the  council  fire !  Women  swarm  from  the  long  houses. 
Children  come  running  with  mats  for  seats.  Bedridden,  blind, 
maimed  are  carried  on  litters,  if  only  they  may  touch  the  gar- 
ments of  these  wonderful  beings.  One  old  chief  with  skin  like 
crinkled  leather  and  body  gnarled  with  woes  of  a  hundred  years 
throws  his  most  precious  possession,  a  headdress,  at  Carder's  feet. 

Poor  Cartier  is  perplexed.  He  can  but  read  aloud  from  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  and  pray  Christ  heal  these  supplicants.  Then 
he  showers  presents  on  the  Indians,  gleeful  as  children  —  knives 
and  hatchets  and  beads  and  tin  mirrors  and  little  images  and  a 
crucifix,  which  he  teaches  them  to  kiss.  Again  the  silver  trum- 
pet peals  through  the  aisled  woods.  Again  the  swords  clank, 
and  the  adventurers  take  their  way  up  the  mountain  —  a  Mont 
Royal,  says  Cartier. 

The  mountain  is  higher  than  the  one  at  Quebec.  Vaster  the 
view  —  vaster  the  purple  mountains,  the  painted  forests,  the  val- 
leys bounded  by  a  sky  line  that  recedes  before  the  explorer  as 
the  rainbow  runs  from  the  grasp  of  a  child.  This  is  not  Cathay  ; 
it  is  a  New  France.  Before  going  back  to  Quebec  the  adven- 
turers follow  a  trail  up  the  St.  Lawrence  far  enough  to  see  that 
Lachine  Rapids  bar  progress  by  boat ;  far  enough,  too,  to  see 
that  the  Gaspe  Indians  had  spoken  truth  when  they  told  of 
another  grand  river  —  the  Ottawa  —  coming  in  from  the  north. 

By  the  i  ith  of  October  Cartier  is  at  Quebec.  His  men  have 
built  a  palisaded  fort  on  the  banks  of  the  St.  Charles.  The 
boats  are  beached.  Indians  scatter  to  their  far  hunting  grounds. 
Winter  sets  in.  Canadian  cold  is  new  to  these  Frenchmen. 
They  huddle  indoors  instead  of  keeping  vigorous  with  exercise. 
Ice  hangs  from  the  dismantled  masts.  Drifts  heap  almost  to  top 
of  palisades.  Fear  of  the  future  falls  on  the  crew.  Will  they  ever 
see  France  again  ?  Then  scurvy  breaks  out.  The  fort  is  prostrate. 
Cartier  is  afraid  to  ask  aid  of  the  wandering  Indians  lest  they 
learn  his  weakness.  To  keep  up  show  of  strength  he  has  his 
men  fire  off  muskets,  batter  the  fort  walls,  march  and  drill  and 


18  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

tramp  and  stamp,  though  twenty-five  lie  dead  and  only  four  are 
able  to  keep  on  their  feet.  The  corpses  are  hidden  in  snow- 
drifts or  crammed  through  ice  holes  in  the  river  with  shot 
weighted  to  their  feet. 

In  desperation  Cartier  calls  on  all  the  saints  in  the  Christian 
calendar.  He  erects  a  huge  crucifix  and  orders  all,  well  and  ill, 
out  in  procession.  Weak  and  hopeless,  they  move  across  the 
snows  chanting  psalms.  That  night  one  of  the  young  noblemen 
died.  Toward  spring  an  Indian  was  seen  apparently  recovering 
from  the  same  disease.  Cartier  asked  him  what  had  worked  the 
cure  and  learned  of  the  simple  remedy  of  brewed  spruce  juice. 

By  the  time  the  Indians  came  from  the  winter  hunt  Cartier's 
men  were  in  full  health.  Up  at  Hochelaga  a  chief  had  seized 
Cartier's  gold-handled  dagger  and  pointed  up  the  Ottawa  whence 
came  ore  like  the  gold  handle.  Failing  to  carry  any  minerals 
home,  Cartier  felt  he  must  have  witnesses  to  his  report.  The 
boats  are  rigged  to  sail,  Chief  Donnacona  and  eleven  others  are 
lured  on  board,  surrounded,  forcibly  seized,  and  treacherously 
carried  off  to  France.  May  6,  1536,  the  boats  leave  Quebec, 
stopping  only  for  water  at  St.  Pierre,  where  the  Breton  fishermen 
have  huts.    July  16  they  anchor  at  St.  Malo. 

Did  France  realize  that  Cartier  had  found  a  new  kingdom  ? 
Not  in  the  least  ;  but  the  home  land  gave  heed  to  that  story  of 
minerals,  and  had  the  kidnapped  Indians  baptized.  Donnacona 
and  all  his  fellow-captives  but  the  little  girl  of  Richelieu  die, 
and  Sieur  de  Roberval  is  appointed  lord  paramount  of  Canada 
to  equip  Cartier  with  five  vessels  and  scour  the  jails  of  France 
for  colonists.  Though  the  colonists  are  convicts,  the  convicts  are 
not  criminals.  Some  have  been  convicted  for  their  religion,  some 
for  their  politics.  What  with  politics  and  war,  it  is  May,  1541, 
before  the  ships  sail,  and  then  Roberval  has  to  wait  another  year 
for  his  artillery,  while  Cartier  goes  ahead  to  build  the  forts. 

From  the  first,  things  go  wrong.  Head  winds  prolong  the  pas- 
sage for  three  months.  The  stock  on  board  is  reduced  to  a  diet 
of  cider,  and  half  the  cattle  die.    Then  the  Indians  of  Quebec 


CARTIER'S  THIRD   VOYAGE 


19 


ask  awkward  questions  about  Donnacona.  Cartier  flounders 
midway  between  truth  and  lie.  Donnacona  had  died,  he  said  ; 
as  for  the  others,  they  have  become  as  white  men.  Agona  suc- 
ceeds Donnacona  as  chief.  Agona  is  so  pleased  at  the  news  that 
he  gives  Cartier  a  suit  of  buckskin  garnished  with  wampum,  but 
the  rest  of  the  Indians  draw  off  in  such  resentment  that  Cartier 
deems  it  wise  to  build  his  fort  at  a  distance,  and  sails  nine  miles 
up  to  Cape  Rouge,  where  he  constructs  Bourg  Royal.  Noel,  his 
nephew,  and  Jalobert,  his  brother-in-law,  take  two  ships  back 
to  France.  While  Cartier  roams  exploring,  Beaupre  commands 
Bourg  Royal. 

In  his  roamings,  ever  with  his  eyes  to  earth  for  minerals,  he 
finds  stones  specked  with  mica,  and  false  diamonds,  whence  the 
height  above  Quebec  is  called  Cape  Diamond.  It  is  enough.  The 
crews  spend  the  year  loading  the  ships  with  cargo  of  worthless 
stones,  and  set  sail  in  May,  high  of  hope  for  wealth  great  as  Span- 
iard carried  from  Peru.  June  8  the  ships  slip  in  to  St.  John's,  New- 
foundland, for  water.  Seventeen  fishing  vessels  rock  to  the  tide 
inside  the  landlocked  lagoon,  and  who  comes  gliding  up  the 
Narrows  of  the  harbor  neck  but  Viceroy  Roberval,  mad  with 
envy  when  he  hears  of  the  diamond  cargoes  !  He  breaks  the 
head  of  a  Portuguese  or  two  among  the  fishing  fleet  and  forth- 
with orders  Cartier  back  to  Quebec. 

Cartier  shifts  anchor  from  too  close  range  of  Roberval' s  guns 
and  says  nothing.  At  dead  of  night  he  slips  anchor  altogether 
and  steals  away  on  the  tide,  with  only  one  little  noiseless  sail  up 
on  each  ship  through  the  dark  Narrows.  Once  outside,  he  spreads 
his  wings  to  the  wind  and  is  off  for  France.  The  diamonds  prove 
worthless,  but  Cartier  receives  a  title  and  retires  to  a  seigneurial 
mansion  at  St.  Malo. 

The  episode  did  not  improve  Roberval's  temper.  The  new 
Viceroy  was  a  soldier  and  a  martinet,  and  his  authority  had 
been  defied.  With  his  two  hundred  colonists,  taken  from  the 
prisons  of  France,  commanded  by  young  French  officers,  —  a 
Lamont  and  a  La  Salle  among  others,  —  he  proceeded  up  the 
coast  of  Newfoundland  to  enter  the  St.  Lawrence  by  Belle  Isle. 


20  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Among  his  people  were  women,  and  Roberval  himself  was  accom- 
panied by  a  niece,  Marguerite,  who  had  the  reputation  of  being 
a  bold  horsewoman  and  prime  favorite  with  the  grandees  who 
frequented  her  uncle's  castle.  Perhaps  Roberval  had  brought 
her  to  New  France  to  break  up  her  attachment  for  a  soldier. 
Or  the  Viceroy  may  have  been  entirely  ignorant  of  the  romance, 
but,  anchored  off  Belle  Isle,  —  Isle  of  Demons,  —  the  angry  gov- 
ernor made  an  astounding  discovery.  The  girl  had  a  lover  on 
board,  a  common  soldier,  and  the  two  openly  defied  his  inter- 
dict. Coming  after  Cartier's  defection,  the  incident  was  oil  to 
fire  with  Roberval.  Sailors  were  ordered  to  lower  the  rowboat. 
One  would  fain  believe  that  the  tyrannical  Viceroy  offered  the 
high-spirited  girl  at  least  the  choice  of  giving  up  her  lover.  She 
was  thrust  into  the  rowboat  with  a  faithful  old  Norman  nurse. 
P"our  guns  and  a  small  supply  of  provisions  were  tossed  to  the 
boat.  The  sailors  were  then  commanded  to  row  ashore  and 
abandon  her  on  Isle  of  Demons.  The  soldier  lover  leaped  over 
decks  and  swam  through  the  surf  to  share  her  fate. 

Isle  of  Demons,  with  its  wailing  tides  and  surf-beaten  reefs, 
is  a  desolate  enough  spot  in  modern  days  when  superstitions  do 
not  add  to  its  terrors.  The  wind  pipes  down  from  The  Labrador 
in  fairest  weather  with  weird  voices  as  of  wailing  ghosts,  and  in 
winter  the  shores  of  Belle  Isle  never  cease  to  echo  to  the  hollow 
booming  of  the  pounding  surf. 

Out  of  driftwood  the  castaways  constructed  a  hut.  Fish  were 
in  plenty,  wild  fowl  offered  easy  mark,  and  in  springtime  the 
ice  floes  brought  down  the  seal  herds.  There  was  no  lack  of  food, 
but  rescue  seemed  forever  impossible  ;  for  no  fishing  craft  would 
approach  the  demon-haunted  isle.  A  year  passed,  two  years,  —  a 
child  was  born.  The  soldier  lover  died  of  heartbreak  and  despond- 
ency. The  child  wasted  away.  The  old  nurse,  too,  was  buried. 
Marguerite  was  left  alone  to  fend  for  herself  and  hope  against  hope 
that  some  of  the  passing  sails  would  heed  her  signals.  No  wonder 
at  the  end  of  the  third  year  she  began  to  hear  shrieking  laughter 
in  the  lonely  cries  of  tide  and  wind,  and  to  imagine  that  she  saw 
fiendish  arms  snatching  through  the  spume  of  storm  drift. 


MARGUERITE   ROBERVAL 


21 


Towards  the  fall  of  1545,  one  calm  day  when  spray  for  the  once 
did  not  hide  the  island,  some  fishermen  in  the  straits  noticed  the 
smoke  of  a  huge  bonfire  ascending  from  Isle  Demons.  Was  it  a 
trick  of  the  fiends  to  lure  men  to  wreck,  or  some  sailors  like 
themselves  signaling  distress  ? 

The  boat  drew  fearfully  near  and  nearer.  A  creature  in  the 
strange  attire  of  skins  from  wild  beasts  ran  down  the  rocks, 
signaling  frantically.    It  was  a  woman.    Terrified  and  trembling, 


OCHELAGA 


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LA       MER     OCCEANE 


THE    "DAUPHIN   MAP  "   OF   CANADA,   CIRCA    1543,  SHOWING 
cartier's  DISCOVERIES 


the  sailors  plucked  up  courage  to  land.  Then  for  the  first  time 
Marguerite  Roberval's  spirit  gave  way.  She  could  not  speak  ; 
she  seemed  almost  bereft  of  reason.  It  was  only  after  the  fisher- 
men had  nourished  her  back  to  semblance  of  womanhood  that 
they  drew  from  her  the  story.  On  returning  to  France,  Marguerite 
Roberval  entered  a  convent.  It  was  there  an  old  court  friend 
of  her  chateau  days  sought  her  out  and  heard  the  tale  from  her 
own  lips. 


2  2      CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

A  colony  begun  under  such  ill  omen  was  not  likely  to  prosper. 
Roberval  had  proceeded  to  Cape  Rouge,  where  he  landed  in  July, 
and  before  winter  had  a  respectable  fort  constructed.  Fifty  of 
his  colonists  died  of  scurvy.  As  many  as  six  were  hanged  in  a 
single  day  for  insubordination,  and  the  whipping  post  became  the 
emblem  of  an  authority  that  trembled  in  the  balance.  Roberval, 
in  truth,  was  not  thinking  of  the  colony.  He  was  thinking  of 
those  minerals  which  the  Indians  said  were  at  the  head  waters 
of  the  Saguenay.  Leaving  thirty  women  at  the  fort,  he  ascended 
the  Saguenay  with  seventy  men  in  spring  and  explored  as  far 
as  Lake  St.  John,  where  the  village  of  Roberval  commemorates 
his  feat  ;  but  he  found  no  minerals  and  lost  eight  men  running 
rapids.  When  Cartier  came  out  in  1543,  Roberval  took  the  re- 
maining colonists  home,  a  profoundly  embittered  man.  Legend 
has  it  that  he  either  perished  on  a  second  voyage  in  1549,  or  was 
assassinated  in  Paris. 

So  falls  the  curtain  on  the  first  attempt  to  colonize  Canada. 


CHAPTER   II 
FROM  1600  TO  1607 

The  second  attempt  to  plant  a  French  colony  in  the  New 
World  was  more  disastrous  than  the  first. 

Though  my  Lord  Roberval  fails,  the  French  fishing  vessels 
continue  to  bound  over  the  billows  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  New 
World.  By  1578  there  are  a  hundred  and  fifty  French  fish- 
ing vessels  off  Newfoundland  alone.  The  fishing  folk  engage  in 
barter.  Cartier's  heirs  ask  for  a  monopoly  of  the  fur  trade  in 
Canada,  but  the  grant  is  so  furiously  opposed  by  the  merchants 
of  the  coast  towns  that  it  is  revoked  until  the  Marquis  de  la 
Roche  ,  who  had  been  a  page  at  the  French  court,  again  obtains 
monopoly,  with  many  high-sounding  titles  as  Governor,  and  the 
added  obligation  that  he  must  colonize  the  new  land.  What  with 
wars  and  court  intrigue,  it  is  1598  before  the  Governor  of  Canada 
is  ready  to  sail.  Of  his  two  hundred  people  taken  from  jails,  all 
but  sixty  have  obtained  their  freedom  by  paying  a  ransom.  With 
these  sixty  La  Roche  follows  the  fishing  fleet  out  to  the  Grand 
Banks,  then  rounds  southwestward  for  milder  clime,  where  he 
may  winter  his  people. 

Straight  across  the  ship's  course  lies  the  famous  sand  bank, 
the  graveyard  of  the  Atlantic, —  what  the  old  navigators  called 
"  the  dreadful  isle,"  —  Sable  Island.  The  sea  lies  placid  as  glass 
between  the  crescent  horns  of  the  long,  low  reefs, —  thirty  miles 
from  horn  to  horn,  with  never  a  tree  to  break  the  swale  of  the 
grass  waist-high. 

The  marquis  lands  his  sixty  colonists  to  fish  for  supplies, 
while  he  goes  on  with  the  crew  to  find  place  for  settlement. 

Barely  has  the  topsail  dipped  over  the  watery  sky  before 
breakers  begin  to  thunder  on  the  sand  reefs.  Air  and  earth 
lash  to  fury.    Sails  are  torn  from  the  ship  of  the  marquis.    His 

23 


24  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

masts  go  overboard,  and  the  vessel  is  driven,  helpless  as  a 
chip  in  a  maelstrom,  clear  back  to  the  ports  of  France.  Here 
double  misfortune  awaits  La  Roche.  His  old  patrons  of  the 
court  are  no  longer  powerful.  He  is  thrown  in  prison  by  a 
rival   baron. 

In  vain  the  colonists  strain  tired  eyes  for  a  sail  at  sea.  Days 
become  weeks,  weeks  months,  summer  autumn  ;  and  no  boat  came 
back.  As  winter  gales  assailed  the  sea,  sending  the  sand  drifting 
like  spray,  the  convicts  built  themselves  huts  out  of  driftwood, 
and  scooped  beds  for  themselves  in  the  earth  like  rabbit  burrows. 
Of  food  there  was  plenty.  The  people  had  their  fishing  lines  ; 
and  the  stock,  left  by  the  Baron  de  Lery  long  ago,  had  multiplied 
and  now  overran  the  island.  Wild  fowl,  too,  teemed  on  the  in- 
land lake  ;  and  foxes,  which  must  have  drifted  ashore  on  the  ice 
float  of  spring,  ran  wild  through  the  sedge. 

Like  Robinson  Crusoe  cast  on  a  desert  isle,  the  desperate 
people  fought  their  fate.  Traps  were  set  for  the  foxes*  snares 
for  the  birds,  and  scouts  kept  tramping  from  end  to  end  of  the 
island  for  sight  of  a  sail.  Racked  with  despair  and  anxiety, 
these  outcasts  of  civilization  soon  fell  to  bitter  quarreling.  Traps 
were  found  rifled.  Dead  men  lay  beside  the  looted  traps  ;  and, 
doubtless,  not  a  few  men  lost  their  lives  in  spring  when  the  ice 
floes  drifted  down  with  the  seal  herds,  and  the  men  gave  mad 
chase  from  ice  pan  to  ice  pan  for  seal  pelts  to  make  clothing. 
Spring  wore  to  summer.  The  graves  on  the  sand  banks  increased. 
For  a  second  winter  the  dreary  snowfall  wrapped  the  island  in 
a  mantle  white  as  death  sheet.  Then  came  the  same  weary 
monotony,  —  the  frenzied  seal  hunt  over  the  blood-stained  floes; 
the  long  summer  days  with  the  drone  of  the  tide  on  the  sand 
banks  ;  the  men  mad  with  hope  at  sight  of  a  sail  peak  over  the 
far  wave  tops,  only  to  be  plunged  in  despair  as  the  fisher  boat 
passed  too  far  for  signal ;  the  fading  of  the  grasses  to  russet  in 
the  sad  autumn  light ;   then  snowfall  again  —  and  despair. 

Five  years  passed  before  La  Roche  could  aid  his  people  ;  and 
the  pilot  who  went  to  their  rescue  won  himself  immortal  con- 
tempt by  robbing  the  castaways  of  their  furs.     Word   of  the 


ENGLISH  VOYAGES  TO   NORTH  AMERICA 


25 


rescue  came  to  the  ears  of  the  court.  Royalty  commanded  the 
refugees  brought  before  the  throne.  Only  twelve  had  survived, 
and  these  marched  before  the  royal  presence  clothed  in  the 
skins  of  seals,  hair  un- 
kempt, beards  to  mid- 
waist,  "like  river  gods 
of  yore,"  says  the  old 
record.  The  King  was 
so  touched  that  he  com- 
manded fifty  crowns 
given  to  each  man  and 
the  stolen  furs  restored. 
La  Roche  died  of  chagrin. 

While  France  is  try- 
ing to  colonize  Canada, 
England  has  not  forgot- 
ten that  John  Cabot  first 
coasted  these  northern 
shores  and  erected  the 
English  flag. 

About  the  time  that 
Marguerite  Roberval 
was  left  alone  on  Isle 
Demons,  two  boys  — 
half-brothers  —  were 
playing  on  the  sands  of 
the  English  Channel, 
sailing  toy  boats  and 
listening  to  sailor  yarns 
of  loot  on  the  Spanish 
Main.  One  was  Humphrey  Gilbert ;  the  other,  Walter  Raleigh. 
These  two  were  destined  to  lead  England's  first  colonies  to 
America. 

Martin  Frobisher  had   already  poked  the   prows  of   English 
ships  into  the  icy  straits  of  Greenland  waters,  seeking  way  to 


QUEEN  ELIZABETH 


26      CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

China.  He  had  come  out  with  a  fleet  of  fifteen  sails  and  one 
hundred  mariners  in  1578  to  found  colonies,  but  was  led  away 
by  the  lure  of  "  fool's  gold."  Loading  his  vessels  with  worthless 
rocks  which  he  believed  contained  gold  enough  "to  suffice  all 
the  gold  gluttons  of  the  world,"  he  sailed  back  to  England  with- 
out leaving  the  trace  of  a  colony.  Francis  Drake,  the  very  same 
year,  had  for  the  first  time  plowed  an  English  furrow  around 
the  seas  of  the  world,  chasing  Spanish  treasure  boats  up  the 
west  coast  of  South  America  and  loading  his  own  vessel  with 
loot  to  the  water  line.  Afraid  to  go  back  the  way  he  had  come, 
round  South  America,  where  all  the  Spanish  frigates  lay  in  wait 
to  catch  him,  Drake  pushed  on  up  the  west  coast  as  far  as  Cali- 
fornia, and  landing,  took  possession  of  what  he  called  "  New 
Albion "  for  Queen  Elizabeth.  But  still  no  colony  had  been 
planted  for  England. 

Gilbert  and  Raleigh,  the  two  half-brothers,  were  both  zealous 
for  glory.  Both  stood  high  in  court  favor.  Both  had  fought  for 
Queen  Elizabeth  in  the  wars.  Gilbert  had  fame  as  seaman  and 
geographer.  He  asks  for  the  privilege  of  founding  England's 
first  colony.  The  Queen  will  incur  no  expense.  Gilbert  and 
Raleigh  and  their  friends  will  fit  out  the  vessels.  Elizabeth 
deeds  to  Gilbert  all  that  old  domain  discovered  by  John  Cabot, 
reserving  only  one  fifth  of  the  minerals  he  may  find  ;  and  she 
sends  him  a  present  of  a  golden  anchor  as  a  Godspeed.  June 
11,  1583,  Sir  Humphrey  sets  sail  with  a  fleet  of  three  splendid 
merchantmen,  fitted  out  as  men-of-war,  and  two  heavily  armed 
little  frigates.  The  crews  number  three  hundred  and  sixty 
men,  but  they  are  for  the  most  part  impressed  seamen  and 
riotous.  The  fleet  is  only  well  away  when  the  biggest  of  the 
merchantmen  signals  that  plague  has  broken  out,  and  flees  back 
to  England.  Later,  as  fog  hides  the  boats  from  one  another, 
the  pirate  crew  on  board  the  little  frigate  Swallow  run  down 
an  English  fisherman  on  the  Grand  Banks,  board  her,  and  at 
bayonet  point  loot  the  schooner  from  stem  to  stern.  When 
the  ships  lower  sail  to  come  in  on  the  tide  through  the  long 
Narrows  to  the  rock-girt  harbor  of   St.  John's,  Newfoundland, 


SIR  HUMPHREY  GILBERT 


27 


the  hundreds  of  fishing  vessels  lying  at  anchor  there  object 
to  the  pirate  Swallow,  but  Sir  Humphrey  reads  his  com- 
mission from  the  Queen,  and  the  fishing  fleet  roars  a  wel- 
come that  sets  the  rocks  ringing.  Sunday,  August  4,  the  next 
day  after  entering,  Biscayans  and  French  and  Portuguese 
and  English  send  their  new  Governor  tribute  in  provisions,  — 
fish  from  the  Eng- 
lish, marmalade 
and  wines  and 
spices  from  the 
foreigners.  The 
admiral  gives  a 
feast  to  the  mas- 
ter mariners  each 
week  he  is  in  port, 
and  entertains  — 
as  the  old  record 
says  —  "right 
bountifully." 
Wandering  round 
the  rocky  harbor, 
up  the  high  cliff 
to  the  left  where 
remnants  of  an 
old  fortress  may 
be  seen  to-day, 
along  the  circular 
hills   to  the  right 

where  the  fishing  stages  cover  the  water  front,  Gilbert's  men 
find  "  fool's  gold,"  rock  with  specks  of  iron  and  mica.  Daniel, 
the  refiner  of  metals,  declares  it  is  a  rich  specimen  of  silver. 
The  find  goes  to  Sir  Humphrey's  head.  He  sees  himself  a  second 
Francis  Drake,  ships  crammed  with  gold.  When  the  captains  of 
the  other  vessels  in  his  fleet  would  see  the  treasure,  he  answers  : 
"  Content  yourselves  !  It  is  enough  !  I  have  seen  it  but  I  would 
have  no  speech  made  of  it  in  harbor;   for  the   Portuguese  and 


SIR  HUMPHREY  GILBERT 


28  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Biscayans  and  French  might  learn  of  it.  We  shall  soon  return 
hither  again." 

Many  of  the  men  are  in  ill  health.  Gilbert  decides  to  send 
the  invalids  home  in  the  Swallozv ;  but  he  transfers  the  bold 
pirate  crew  of  that  frigate  to  the  big  ship  Delight,  which  carries 
provisions  for  the  colony.  While  planning  to  make  St.  John's 
the  headquarters  of  his  new  kingdom,  Sir  Humphrey  wishes  to 
explore  those  regions  where  Cartier  had  gone  and  whence  the 
fishing  schooners  bring  such  wealth  in  furs. 

August  20  the  remainder  of  his  fleet  rounds  out  of  St.  John's 
south  west  for  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  —  the  Delight  with  the 
provisions,  the  Golden  Hinde  with  the  majority  of  the  people, 
the  little  frigate  Squirrel  weighted  down  by  artillery  stores  but 
under  command  of  Gilbert  himself,  because  the  smaller  ship  can 
run  close  ashore  to  explore.  To  keep  up  the  spirits  of  the  men, 
there  is  much  merrymaking.  Becalmed  off  Cape  Breton,  Sir 
Humphrey  visits  the  big  ship  Delight,  where  the  trumpets  and 
the  drums  and  the  pipes  and  the  cornets  reel  off  wild  sailor 
jigs.  "There  was,"  says  the  old  record,  "little  watching  for 
danger."  Wednesday,  August  26,  the  sounding  line  forewarned 
the  reefs  of  Sable  Island.  Breakers  were  sighted.  The  Delight 
signaled  that  her  captain  wanted  to  shift  southwest  to  deeper 
water,  but  Gilbert  wanted  to  enter  the  St.  Lawrence  and  sig- 
naled back  to  go  on  northwest.  That  night  a  storm  raged.  The 
provision  ship  ran  full  tilt  into  the  sand  banks  of  Sable  Island, 
and  was  battered  into  chips  before  the  other  ships  could  come 
to  rescue.  All  supplies  were  lost  and  all  the  pirate  crew  perished 
but  sixteen,  who  jumped  into  the  pinnace  dragging  astern,  and, 
with  only  one  oar,  half  punted,  half  drifted  for  seven  days  till 
the  wave  wash  carried  them  to  the  shores  of  Newfoundland. 
There  they  were  picked  up  by  a  fishing  vessel. 

With  provisions  gone,  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert's  colony  was 
doomed.  He  must  turn  back.  Saturday,  August  31,  they 
reversed  the  course.  When  halfway  across  the  Atlantic  the 
admiral  rowed  from  the  little  Squirrel  across  to  the  Golden 
Hinde  to  have   a  lame  foot   treated   by   the   surgeon.     "  Cheer 


SIR  HUMPHREY  GILBERT 


29 


up,"  he  urged  the  men.  "Next  year  her  Majesty  will  loan  me 
;£iooo,  and  we  shall  come  again." 

As  storm  was  gathering,  the  men  begged  him  to  remain  on 
the  larger  ship,  but  Gilbert  refused  to  leave  the  sailors  of  the 
Squirrel.  The  frigate  was  as  safe  for  him  as  for  them,  he  said. 
Some  one  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  frigate  was 
overweighted  with 
cannon.  Gilbert 
laughed  all  danger 
to  scorn.  Soon 
afterwards  the 
waves  began  to 
break  short  and 
high — a  dangerous 
sea  for  a  small, 
overweighted  ship. 
It  had  been  ar- 
ranged that  both 
ships  should  swing 
lanterns  fore  and 
aft  to  keep  each 
other  in  sight  at 
night.  On  the 
night  of  Septem- 
ber 9  a  phosphores- 
cent light  was  seen 
to  gleam  above 
the  mainmast  of 
the    Squirrel,  ■ — - 

certain  sign  to  the  superstitious  sailors  of  dire  disaster ;  but 
when  the  Hinde  slackened  speed,  and  the  great  waves  threw 
the  vessels  almost  together,  there  was  Sir  Humphrey  sitting 
aloft,  book  in  hand,  shouting  out,  "  We  are  as  near  Heaven  by 
sea  as  by  land."  The  Hinde  fell  to  the  rear.  The  Squirrel  led 
away,  her  stern  lanterns  lighting  a  trail  across  the  shiny  dark 
of  the  tempestuous  billows.    Suddenly,  at  midnight,  the  guiding 


SIR  WALTER   RALEIGH 


30  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

light  was  lost.  The  Squirrel's  stern  lanterns  were  seen  to 
descend  the  pitching  trough  of  a  mountain  wave,  and  when  the 
wall  of  water  fell,  no  light  came  up.  Down  into  the  abyss  the 
little  craft  had  plunged,  never  to  rise  again,  carrying  explorer, 
treasure  hunters,  colonists,  to  a  watery  grave. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  disaster  took  place  halfway  across 
the  ocean,  and  not  off  Newfoundland,  as  the  ballad  relates. 

But  for  all  this  misfortune,  England  did  not  desist.  The  very 
next  year  Raleigh,  who  had  played  on  the  sands  with  Humphrey 
Gilbert,  sends  out  his  colonists  to  the  Roanoke,  and  lays  the 
foundations  for  the  beginning  of  empire  in  the  Southern  States. 
English  sailors  explore  Cape  Cod.  Ten  years  after  Frobisher 
had  brought  home  his  cargo  of  worthless  stones  from  Labrador, 
Davis,  the  master  mariner,  is  out  exploring  the  waters  west  of 
Greenland  ;  and  Henry  Hudson,  the  English  pilot  who  had  dis- 
covered Hudson  River,  New  York,  for  the  Dutch,  is  retained 
by  the  English  in  1610  to  explore  those  waters  west  of  Green- 
land where  both  Frobisher  and  Davis  reported  open  passage. 

It  is  midsummer  of  1610  when  Hudson  enters  Hudson  Straits. 
The  ice  jam  of  Ungava  Bay,  Labrador,  has  almost  torn  his  ships' 
timbers  apart  and  has  set  fear  shivering  like  an  aspen  leaf  among 
the  crew.  Old  Juett,  the  mate,  rages  openly  at  Hudson  for 
venturing  such  a  frail  ship  on  such  a  sea  ;  but  when  the  ship 
anchors  at  the  west  end  of  Hudson  Straits,  five  hundred  miles 
from  the  Atlantic,  there  opens  to  view  another  sea,  — a  sea  large 
as  the  Mediterranean,  that,  like  the  Mediterranean,  may  lead 
to  another  world.  It  is  as  dangerous  to  go  back  as  forward  ; 
and  forward  Hudson  sails,  southwestward  for  that  sea  Drake 
had  cruised  off  California,  the  old  mate's  mutiny  rumbling 
beneath  decks  like  a  volcano.  South,  southwestward,  seven 
hundred  miles  sails  Hudson,  past  the  high  rocks  and  airy 
cataracts  of  Richmond  Gulf,  past  silence  like  the  realms  of 
death,  on  down  where  Hudson  Bay  rounds  into  James  Bay 
and  the  shallows  plainly  show  this  is  no  way  to  a  western  sea, 
but  a  blind  inlet,  bowlder-strewn  and  muddy  as  swamps. 


HENRY  HUDSON  31 

When  the  ship  runs  aground  and  all  hands  must  out  to  waist 
in  ice  water  to  pull  her  ashore  as  the  tide  comes  in,  Juett's  rage 
bursts  all  bounds.  As  they  toil,  snow  begins  to  fall.  They  are 
winter  bound  and  storm  bound  in  an  unknown  land.  Half  the 
crew  are  in  open  mutiny  ;  the  other  half  build  winter  quarters 
and  range  the  woods  of  James  Bay  for  game.  Of  game  there  is 
plenty,  but  the  rebels  refuse  to  hunt.  A  worthless  lad  named 
Green,  whom   Hudson  had  picked  off   the  streets  of   London, 


AT  EASTERN  ENTRANCE  TO  HUDSON  STRAITS 

turns  traitor  and  talebearer,  fomenting  open  quarrels  till  the 
commander  threatens  he  will  hang  to  the  yardarm  the  first  man 
guilty  of  disobedience.  So  passes  the  sullen  winter.  Provisions 
are  short  when  the  ship  weighs  anchor  for  England  in  June  of 
161 1.  With  tears  in  his  eyes,  Hudson  hands  out  the  last  rations. 
Ice  blocks  the  way.  Delay  means  starvation.  If  the  crew  were 
only  half  as  large,  Henry  Green  whispers  to  the  mutineers,  there 
would  be  food  enough  for  passage  home.  The  ice  floes  clear, 
the  sails  swing  rattling  to  the  breeze,  but  as  Hudson  steps  on 
deck,  the  mutineers  leap  upon  him  like  wolves.  He  is  bound 
and  thrown  into  the  rowboat.    With  him  are  thrust  his  son  and 


32 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


eight  others  of  the  crew.  The  rope  is  cut,  the  rowboat  jerks 
back  adrift,  and  Hudson's  vessel,  manned  by  mutineers,  drives 
before  the  wind.  A  few  miles  out,  the  mutineers  lower  sails  to 
rummage  for  food.  The  little  boat  with  the  castaways  is  seen 
coming  in  pursuit.  Guilt-haunted,  the  crew  out  with  all  sails 
and  flee  as  from  avenging  ghosts.  So  passes  Henry  Hudson 
from  the  ken  of  all  men,  though  Indian  legend  on  the  shores  of 
Hudson  Bay  to  this  day  maintains  that  the  castaways  landed 

north  of  Rupert  and  lived  among 
the  savages. 

Not  less  disastrous  were  Eng- 
lish efforts  than  French  to  colo- 
nize the  New  World.  Up  to 
1610  Canada's  story  is,  in  the 
main,  a  record  of  blind  heroism, 
dogged  courage,  death  that  re- 
fused to  acknowledge  defeat. 


Four  hundred  French  vessels 
now  yearly  come  to  reap  the 
harvest  of  the  sea  ;  in  and  out 
among  the  fantastic  rocks  of 
Gaspe,  pierced  and  pillared  and  scooped  into  caves  by  the 
wave  wash,  where  fisher  boats  reap  other  kind  of  harvest, 
richer  than  the  silver  harvest  of  the  sea,  — harvest  of  beaver,  and 
otter,  and  marten ;  up  the  dim  amber  waters  of  the  Saguenay, 
within  the  shadow  of  the  somber  gorge,  trafficking  baubles  of 
bead  and  red  print  for  furs,  precious  furs.  Pontgrave,  merchant 
prince,  comes  out  with  fifty  men  in  1600,  and  leaves  sixteen  at 
Tadoussac,  ostensibly  as  colonists,  really  as  wood  lopers  to  scatter 
through  the  forests  and  learn  the  haunts  of  the  Indians.  Pont- 
grave comes  back  for  men  and  furs  in  1601,  and  comes  again 
in  1603  with  two  vessels,  accompanied  by  a  soldier  of  fortune 
from  the  French  court,  who  acts  as  geographer,  —  Samuel 
Champlain,  now  in  his  thirty-sixth  year,  with  service  in  war  to 
his  credit  and  a  journey  across  Spanish  America. 


HUDSON'  COAT  OF  ARMS 


CHAMPLAIN'S   FIRST   VOYAGE 


.3 


The  two  vessels  are  barely  as  large  as  coastal  schooners  ;  but 
shallow  draft  enables  them  to  essay  the  Upper  St.  Lawrence  far 
as  Mount  Royal,  where  Cartier  had  voyaged.  Of  the  palisaded 
Indian  fort  not  a  vestige  remains.  War  or  plague  has  driven 
the  tribe  westward,  but  it  is  plain  to  the  court  geographer  that, 
in  spite  of  former  failures,  this  land  of  rivers  like  lakes,  and 
valleys  large  as  European  kingdoms,  is  fit  for  French  colonists. 


g&f  ■ 

'-   "j&r 

.       .* ' 

■^-iv^    .;>— ... 

'■  "*r*si> 

V--**    - 

^ 

*^   " '  •--. 

*'«  •  -— . 

^  " 

**^W5 

tg\r-^h< 

"»*v  >  ■jr 


THE  FANTASTIC  ROCKS  OF  OASPE 


When  Champlain  returns  to  France  the  King  readily  grants 
to  Sieur  de  Monts  a  region  roughly  defined  as  anywhere  between 
Pennsylvania  and  Labrador,  designated  Acadia.  This  region 
Sieur  de  Monts  is  to  colonize  in  return  for  a  monopoly  of  the 
fur  trade.  When  other  traders  complain,  De  Monts  quiets  them 
by  letting  them  all  buy  shares  in  the  venture.  With  him  are 
associated  as  motley  a  throng  of  treasure  seekers  as  ever  stam- 
peded for  gold.  There  is  Samuel  Champlain,  the  court  geogra- 
pher ;   there  is  Pontgrave,  the  merchant  prince,  on  a  separate 


34 


CANADA:    THE    EMPIRE   OF  THE    NORTH 


vessel  with  stores  for  the  colonists.  Pontgrave  is  to  attend 
especially  to  the  fur  trading.  There  are  the  Baron  de  Poutrin- 
court  and  his  young  son,  Biencourt,  and  other  noblemen  looking 
for  broader  domains  in  the  New  World  ;  and  there  are  the  usual 
riffraff  of  convicts  taken  from  dungeons.  Priests  go  to  look  after 
the  souls  of  the  Catholics,  Huguenot  ministers  to  care  for  the 
Protestants,  and  so  valiantly  do  these  dispute  with  tongues  and 
fists  that  the  sailors  threaten  to  bury  them  in  the  same  grave  to 

see  if  they  can  lie 
at  peace  in  death. 
Before  the  boats 
sight  Acadia,  it  is 
early  summer  of 
1604.  Pontgrave 
leaves  stores  with 
De  Monts  and  sails 
on  up  to  Tadous- 
sac.  De  Monts 
enters  the  little 
bay  of  St.  Mary's, 
off  the  northwest 
corner  of  Nova 
Scotia,  and  sends 
his  people  ashore 
to  explore. 

Signs  of  minerals 
they  seek,  rushing 
pellmell  through  the  woods,  gleeful  as  boys  out  of  school.  The 
forest  is  pathless  and  dense  with  June  undergrowth,  shutting  out 
the  sun  and  all  sign  of  direction.  The  company  scatters.  Priest 
Aubry,  more  used  to  the  cobble  pavement  of  Paris  than  to  the 
tangle  of  ferns,  grows  fatigued  and  drinks  at  a  fresh-water  rill. 
Going  in  the  direction  of  his  comrades'  voices,  he  suddenly  realizes 
that  he  has  left  his  sword  at  the  spring.  The  priest  hurries  back 
for  the  sword,  loses  his  companions'  voices,  and  when  he  would 
return,    finds    that   he    is    hopelessly    lost.     The    last    shafts   of 


SAMUEL  DE  CHAMPLAIN 


CHAMPLAIN'S   FIRST  VOYAGE 


35 


sunlight  disappear.  The  chill  of  night  settles  on  the  darkening 
woods.  The  priest  shouts  till  he  is  hoarse  and  fires  off  his 
pistol ;  but  the  woods  muffle  all  sound  but  the  scream  of  the 
wild  cat  or  the  uncanny  hoot  of  the  screech  owl.  Aubry  wanders 
desperately  on  and  on  in  the  dark,  his  cassock  torn  to  tatters 
by  the  brushwood,  his  way  blocked  by  the  undisturbed  windfall 
of  countless  ages,  .  .  .  on  and  on,  .  .  .  till  gray  dawn  steals  through 
the  forest  and  midday  wears  to  a  second  night. 

Back  at  the  boat  were  wild  alarm  and  wilder  suspicions. 
Could  the  Huguenots,  with  whom  Aubry  had  battled  so  violently, 
have  murdered  him  ?  De  Monts  scouted  the  notion  as  unworthy, 
but  the  suspicion  clung  in  spite  of  fiercest  denials.  All  night 
cannon  were  fired  from  the  vessel  and  bonfires  kept  blazing  on 
shore  ;  but  two  or  three  days  passed,  and  the  priest  did  not  come. 

De  Monts  then  sails  on  up  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  which  he  calls 
French  Bay,  and  by  the  merest  chance  sheers  through  an  open- 
ing eight  hundred  feet  wide  to  the  right  and  finds  himself  in  the 
beautiful  lakelike  Basin  of  Annapolis,  broad  enough  to  harbor 
all  the  French  navy,  with  a  shore  line  of  wooded  meadows  like 
home-land  parks.  Poutrincourt  is  so  delighted,  he  at  once  asks 
for  an  estate  here  and  names  the  domain  Port  Royal. 

On  up  Fundy  Bay  sails  De  Monts,  Samuel  Champlain  ever 
leaning  over  decks,  making  those  maps  and  drawings  which  have 
come  down  from  that  early  voyage.  The  tides  carry  to  a  broad 
river  on  the  north  side.  It  is  St.  John's  Day.  They  call  the 
river  St.  John,  and  wander  ashore,  looking  vainly  for  more 
minerals.  Westward  is  another  river,  known  to-day  as  the 
Ste.  Croix,  the  boundary  between  Maine  and  New  Brunswick. 
Dochet  Island  at  its  mouth  seems  to  offer  what  to  a  soldier  is 
an  ideal  site.  A  fort  here  could  command  either  Fundy  Bay  or 
the  upland  country,  which  Indians  say  leads  back  to  the  St. 
Lawrence.  Thinking  more  of  fort  than  farms,  De  Monts  plants 
his  colony  on  Ste.  Croix  River,  on  an  island  composed  mainly 
of  sand  and  rock. 

While  workmen  labor  to  erect  a  fort  on  the  north  side,  the 
pilot  is  sent  back  to  Nova  Scotia  to  prospect  for  minerals.    As 


36 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE"  OF  THE  NORTH 


the  vessel  coasts  near  St.  Mary's  Bay,  a  black  object  is  seen 
moving  weakly  along  the  shore.  Sailors  and  pilot  gaze  in  amaze- 
ment. A  hat  on  the  end  of  a  pole  is  waved  weakly  from  the 
beach.  The  men  can  scarcely  believe  their  senses.  It  must  be 
the  priest,  though  sixteen  days  have  passed  since  he  disappeared. 
For  two  weeks  Aubry  had  wandered,  living  on  berries  and  roots, 
before  he  found  his  way  back  to  the  sea. 

Here,  then,  at  last,  is  founded  the  first  colony  in  Canada,  a 
little  palisaded  fort  of  seventy-nine  men  straining  longing  eyes 


PORT   ROYAL  OR  ANNAPOLIS  BASIN,  1609 
(From  Lescarbot's  map) 

at  the  sails  of  the  vessel  gliding  out  to  sea  ;  for  Pontgrave  has 
taken  one  vessel  up  the  St.  Lawrence  to  trade,  and  Poutrincourt 
has  gone  back  to  France  with  the  other  for  supplies.  A  worse 
beginning  could  hardly  have  been  made.  The  island  was  little 
better  than  a  sand  heap.  No  hills  shut  out  the  cold  winds  that 
swept  down  the  river  bed  from  the  north,  and  the  tide  carried 
in  ice  jam  from  the  south.  As  the  snow  began  to  fall,  padding 
the  stately  forests  with  a  silence  as  of  death,  whitening  the 
gaunt  spruce  trees  somber  as  funereal  mourners,  the  colonists 
felt  the  icy  loneliness  of  winter  in   a  forest  chill   their  hearts. 


FOUNDING  OF  STE.  CROIX  37 

Cooped  up  on  the  island  by  the  ice,  they  did  little  hunting. 
Idleness  gives  time  for  repinings.  Scurvy  came,  and  before 
spring  half  the  colonists  had  peopled  the  little  cemetery  outside 
the  palisades.  De  Monts  has  had  enough  of  Ste.  Croix.  When 
Pontgrave  comes  out  with  forty  more  men  in  June,  De  Monts 
prepares  to  move.  Champlain  had  the  preceding  autumn  sailed 
south  seeking  a  better  site  ;  and  now  with  De  Monts  he  sails 
south  again  far  as  Cape  Cod,  looking  for  a  place  to  plant  the 
capital  of  New  France.  It  is  amusing  to  speculate  that  Canada 
might  have  included  as  far  south  as  Boston,  if  they  had  found  a 
harbor  to  their  liking  ;  but  they  saw  nothing  to  compare  with 
Annapolis  Basin,  narrow  of  entrance,  landlocked,  placid  as  a 
lake,  with  shores  wooded  like  a  park  ;  and  back  they  cruised  to 
Ste.  Croix  in  August,  to  move  the  colony  across  to  Nova  Scotia, 
to  Annapolis  Basin  of  Acadia.  While  Champlain  and  Pontgrave 
volunteer  to  winter  in  the  wilderness,  De  Monts  goes  home  to 
look  after  his  monopoly  in  France. 

What  had  De  Monts  to  show  for  his  two  years'  labor  ?  His 
company  had  spent  what  would  be  $20,000  in  modern  money, 
and  all  returns  from  fur  trade  had  been  swallowed  up  prolonging 
the  colony.  While  Champlain  hunted  moose  in  the  woods  round 
Port  Royal  and  Pontgrave  bartered  furs  during  the  winter  of 
of  1605-1606,  De  Monts  and  Poutrincourt  and  the  gay  lawyer 
Marc  Lescarbot  fight  for  the  life  of  the  monopoly  in  Paris  and 
point  out  to  the  clamorous  merchants  that  the  building  of  a 
French  empire  in  the  New  World  is  of  more  importance  than 
paltry  profits.  De  Monts  remains  in  France  to  stem  the  tide 
rising  against  him,  while  Poutrincourt  and  Lescarbot  sail  on 
the  Jonas  with  more  colonists  and  supplies  for  Port  Royal. 

Noon,  July  27,  1606,  the  ship  slips  into  the  Basin  of  Annap- 
olis. To  Lescarbot,  the  poet  lawyer,  the  scene  is  a  fairyland 
—  the  silver  flood  of  the  harbor  motionless  as  glass,  the  wooded 
meadows  dank  with  bloom,  the  air  odorous  of  woodland  smells, 
the  blue  hills  rimming  round  the  sky,  and  against  the  woods  of 
the  north  shore  the  chapel  spire  and  thatch  roofs  and  slab  walls 
of  the  little  fort,  the  one  oasis  of  life  in  a  wilderness. 


38 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


As  the  sails  rattled  clown  and  the  anchor  dropped,  not  a  soul 
appeared  from  the  fort.  The  gates  were  bolted  fast.  The  Jonas 
runs  up  the  French  ensign.  Then  a  canoe  shoots  out  from  the 
brushwood,  paddled  by  the  old  chief  Membertou.  He  signals 
back  to  the  watchers  behind  the  gates.  Musketry  shots  ring 
out  welcome.  The  ship's  cannon  answer,  setting  the  waters 
churning.    Trumpets  blare.    The  gates  fly  wide  and  out  marches 


■  .P-'"'"'   """'"  ^""l  '     ~'M?  IT,'>'''T'"  "'  1  *t-:t*'*, 


."i 


BUILDINGS  ON  STE.  CROIX    ISLAND,   1613 
(From  Champlain's  diagram) 

the  garrison  —  two  lone  Frenchmen.  The  rest,  despairing  of  a 
ship  that  summer,  have  cruised  along  to  Cape  Breton  to  obtain 
supplies  from  French  fishermen,  whence,  presently,  come  Pont- 
grave  and  Champlain,  overjoyed  to  find  the  ship  from  France. 
Poutrincourt  has  a  hogshead  of  wine  rolled  to  the  courtyard 
and  all  hands  fitly  celebrate. 

When  Pontgrave  carries  the  furs  to  France,  Marc  Lescarbot, 
the  lawyer  poet,  proves  the  life  of  the  fort  for  this,  the  third 
winter  of   the  colonists  in  Acadia.     Poutrincourt   and   his   son 


THE  COLONISTS  IN  ACADIA  39 

attend  to  trade.  Champlain,  as  usual,  commands  ;  and  dull  care 
is  chased  away  by  a  thousand  pranks  of  the  Paris  advocate. 
First,  he  sets  the  whole  fort  a-gardening,  and  Baron  Poutrin- 
court  forgets  his  nob/cssc  long  enough  to  wield  the  hoe.  Then 
Champlain  must  dam  up  the  brook  for  a  trout  pond.  The 
weather  is  almost  mild  as  summer  until  January.  The  woods 
ring  to  many  a  merry  picnic,  fishing  excursion,  or  moose  hunt ; 
and  when  snow  comes,  the  gay  Lescarbot  along  with  Champlain 
institutes  a  New  World  order  of  nobility  —  the  Order  of  Good 
Times.  Each  day  one  of  the  number  must  cater  to  the  mess- 
room  table  of  the  fort.  This  means  keen  hunting,  keen  rivalry 
for  one  to  outdo  another  in  the  giving  of  sumptuous  feasts.  And 
all  is  done  with  the  pomp  and  ceremony  of  a  court  banquet. 
When  the  chapel  bell  rings  out  noon  hour  and  workers  file  to 
the  long  table,  there  stands  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  napkin  on 
shoulder,  chain  of  honor  round  his  neck,  truncheon  in  his  hand. 
The  gavel  strikes,  and  there  enter  the  Brotherhood,  each  bearing 
a  steaming  dish  in  his  hand,  — moose  hump,  beaver  tail,  bears' 
paws,  wild  fowl  smelling  luscious  as  food  smells  only  to  out- 
of-doors  men.  Old  Chief  Membertou  dines  with  the  whites. 
Crouching  round  the  wall  behind  the  benches  are  the  squaws 
and  the  children,  to  whom  are  flung  many  a  tasty  bit. 

At  night  time,  round  the  hearth  fire,  when  the  roaring  logs 
set  the  shadows  dancing  on  the  rough-timbered  floor,  the  trun- 
cheon and  chain  of  command  are  pompously  transferred  to  the 
new  Grand  Master.  It  is  all  child's  play,  but  it  keeps  the  blood 
of  grown  men  coursing  hopefully. 

Or  else  Lescarbot  perpetrates  a  newspaper,  —  a  handwritten 
sheet  giving  the  doings  of  the  day,  —  perhaps  in  doggerel  verse 
of  his  own  composing.  At  other  times  trumpets  and  drums 
and  pipes  keep  time  to  a  dance.  As  all  the  warring  clergymen, 
both  Huguenot  and  Catholic,  have  died  of  scurvy,  Lescarbot 
acts  as  priest  on  Sundays,  and  winds  up  the  day  with  cheerful 
excursions  up  the  river,  or  supper  spread  on  the  green.  The 
lawyer's  good  spirits  proved  contagious.  The  French  songs  that 
rang  through  the  woods  of  Acadia,  keeping  time  to  the  chopper's 


40  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

labors,  were  the  best  antidote  to  scurvy ;  but  the  wildwood 
happiness  was  too  good  to  last.  While  L'Escarbot  was  writing 
his  history  of  the  new  colonies  a  bolt  fell  from  the  blue.  Instead  of 
De  Monts'  vessel  there  came  in  spring  a  fishing  smack  with 
word  that  the  grant  of  Acadia  had  been  rescinded.  No  more 
money  would  be  advanced.  Poutrincourt  and  his  son,  Biencourt, 
resolved  to  come  back  without  the  support  of  a  company  ;  but 
for  the  present  all  took  sad  leave  of  the  little  settlement  — 
Poutrincourt,  Champlain,  L'Escarbot  —  and  sailed  with  the 
Cape  Breton  fishing  fleet  for  France,  where  they  landed  in 
October,  1607. 

Cartier,  Roberval,  La  Roche,  De  Monts — all  had  failed  to 
establish  France  in  Canada;  and  as  for  England,  Sir  Humphrey's 
colonists  lay  bleaching  skeletons  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 


CHAPTER   III 

FROM  1007  TO  1G35 

Though  the  monopoly  had  been  rescinded,  Poutrincourt  set 
himself  to  interesting  merchants  in  the  fur  trade  of  Acadia, 
and  the  French  king  confirmed  to  him  the  grant  of  Port  Royal. 
Yet  it  was  1610  before  Baron  Poutrincourt  had  gathered  sup- 
plies to  reestablish  the  colony,  and  an  ominous  cloud  rose  on 
the  horizon,  threatening  his  supremacy  in  the  New  World. 
Nearly  all  the  merchants  supporting  him  were  either  Huguenots 
or  moderate  Catholics.  The  Jesuits  were  all  powerful  at  court, 
and  were  pressing  for  a  part  in  his  scheme.  The  Jesuit,  Father 
Biard,  was  waiting  at  Bordeaux  to  join  the  ship.  Poutrincourt 
evaded  issues  with  such  powerful  opponents.  He  took  on  board 
Father  La  Fleche,  a  moderate,  and  gave  the  Jesuit  the  slip  by 
sailing  from  Dieppe  in  February. 

To  this  quarrel  there  are  two  sides,  as  to  all  quarrels.  The 
colony  must  now  be  supported  by  the  fur  trade  ;  and  fur  traders, 
world  over,  easily  add  to  their  profits  by  deeds  which  will  not 
bear  the  censure  of  missionaries.  On  the  other  hand,  to  Pou- 
trincourt, the  Jesuits  meant  divided  authority  ;  and  the  most 
lawless  scoundrel  that  ever  perpetrated  crimes  in  the  fur  trade 
could  win  over  the  favor  of  the  priests  by  a  hypocritical  sem- 
blance of  contrition  at  the  confessional.  Contrition  never  yet 
undid  a  crime ;  and  civil  courts  can  take  no  cognizance  of 
repentance. 

When  the  ships  sailed  in  to  Port  Royal  the  little  fort  was 
found  precisely  as  it  had  been  left.  Not  even  the  furniture  had 
been  disturbed,  and  old  Membertou,  the  Indian  chief,  welcomed 
the  white  men  back  with  taciturn  joy.  Pere  La  Fleche  assembles 
the  savages,  tells  them  the  story  of  the  Christian  faith,  then 
to  the  beat  of  drum  and  chant   of   "  Te   Deum"  receives,  one 

41 


42  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

afternoon,  twenty  naked  converts  into  the  folds  of  the  church. 
Membertou  is  baptized  Henry,  after  the  King,  and  all  his 
frowsy  squaws  renamed  after  ladies  of  the  most  dissolute  court 
in  Christendom. 

Young  Biencourt  is  to  convey  the  ship  back  to  France.  He 
finds  that  the  Queen  Dowager  has  taken  the  Jesuits  under  her 
especial  protection.  Money  enough  to  buy  out  the  interests  of 
the  Huguenot  merchants  for  the  Jesuits  has  been  advanced. 
Fathers  Biard  and  Masse  embark  on  The  Grace  of  God  with 
young  Biencourt  in  January,  1 6 1 1 ,  for  Port  Royal.  Almost  at 
once  the  divided  authority  results  in  trouble.  Coasting  the  Bay 
of  Fundy,  Biencourt  discovers  that  Pontgrave's  son  has  roused 
the  hostility  of  the  Indians  by  some  shameless  act.  Young  Bien- 
court is  for  hanging  the  miscreant  to  the  yardarm,  but  the 
sinner  gains  the  ear  of  the  saints  by  woeful  tale  of  penitence, 
and  Father  Biard  sides  with  young  Pontgrave.  Instead  of  the 
gayety  that  reigned  at  Port  Royal  in  L'Escarbot's  clay,  now  is 
sullen  mistrust 

The  Jesuits  threaten  young  Biencourt  with  excommunication. 
Biencourt  retaliates  by  threatening  them  with  expulsion.  For 
three  months  no  religious  services  are  held.  The  boat  of  1612 
brings  out  another  Jesuit,  Gilbert  du  Thet ;  and  the  Jonas,  which 
comes  in  161  3  with  fifty  more  men,  —  La  Saussaye,  commander, 
Fleury,  captain,  —  has  been  entirely  outfitted  by  friends  of  the 
Jesuits.  By  this  time  Baron  de  Poutrincourt,  in  France,  was 
involved  in  debt  beyond  hope  ;  but  his  right  to  Port  Royal  was 
unshaken,  and  the  Jesuits  decided  to  steer  south  to  seek  a 
new  site  for  their  colony. 

Zigzagging  along  the  coast  of  Maine,  Captain  Fleury  cast 
anchor  off  Mount  Desert  at  Frenchman's  Bay.  A  cress  was 
erected,  mass  celebrated,  and  four  white  tents  pitched  to  house 
tin-  people  ;  but  the  clash  between  civil  and  religious  authority 
broke  out  again.  The  sailors  would  not  obey  the  priests.  Fleury 
feared  mutiny.  Saussaye,  the  commander,  lost  his  head,  and  dis- 
order was  ripening  to  disaster  when  there  appeared  over  the  sea 
the  peak  of  a  sail, — a  sail  topped  by  a  little  red   ensign,  the 


ARGALL  OF  VIRGINIA  ATTACKS   THE   FRENCH 


43 


flag  of  the  .English,  who  claimed  all  this  coast.  And  the  sail  was 
succeeded  by  decks  with  sixty  mariners,  and  hulls  through  whose 
ports  bristled  fourteen  cannon.  The  newcomer  was  Samuel 
Argall  of  Virginia,  whom  the  Indians  had  told  of  the  French, 
now  bearing  down  full  sail,  cannon  leveled,  to  expel  these  aliens 
from  the  domain  of  England's  King.  Drums  were  beating, 
trumpets  blowing,  fifes  shrieking  —  there  was  no  mistaking  the 
purpose  of  the  English  ship.    Saussaye,  the  French  commander, 


PORT  ROYAL 
(From  Champlain's  diagram) 

dashed  for  hiding  in  the  woods.  Captain  Fleury  screamed  for 
some  one,  every  one,  any  one,  "  to  fire  —  fire  "  ;  but  the  French 
sailors  had  imitated  their  commander  and  fled  to  the  woods,  while 
the  poor  Jesuit,  Gilbert  du  Thet,  fell  weltering  in  blood  from  an 
English  cannonade  that  swept  the  French  decks  bare  and  set  all 
sails  in  flame.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  Argall  had  captured 
men  and  craft.  Fifteen  of  the  French  prisoners  he  set  adrift 
in  open  boat,  on  the  chance  of  their  joining  the  French  fishing 
fleet  off  Cape  Breton.    They  were  ultimately  carried  to  St.  Malo. 


44  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

The  rest  of  the  prisoners,  including  Father  Biard,  he  took  back 
to  Virginia,  where  the  commission  held  from  the  French  King 
assured  them  honorable  treatment  in  time  of  peace  ;  but  Argall 
was  promptly  sent  north  again  with  his  prisoners,  and  three 
frigates  to  lay  waste  every  vestige  of  French  settlement  from 
Maine  to  St.  John.  Mount  Desert,  the  ruins  of  Ste.  Croix,  the 
fortress  beloved  by  Poutrincourt  at  Port  Royal,  the  ripening 
wheat  of  Annapolis  Basin  —  all  fed  the  flames  of  Argall's  zeal; 
and  young  Biencourt's  wood  runners,  watching  from  the  forests 
the  destruction  of  all  their  hopes,  the  ruin  of  all  their  plans, 
ardently  begged  their  young  commander  to  parley  with  Argall 
that  they  might  obtain  the  Jesuit  Biard  and  hang  him  to  the 
highest  tree.  To  his  coming  they  attributed  all  the  woes.  It 
was  as  easy  for  them  to  believe  that  the  Jesuit  had  piloted  the 
English  destroyer  to  Port  Royal,  as  it  had  been  ten  years  before 
for  the  Catholics  to  accuse  the  Huguenots  of  murdering  the  lost 
priest  Aubry  ;  and  there  was  probably  as  much  truth  in  one 
charge  as  the  other. 

So  fell  Port  Royal ;  but  out  round  the  ruins  of  Port  Royal, 
where  the  little  river  runs  down  to  the  sea  past  Goat  Island, 
young  Biencourt  and  his  followers  took  to  the  woods  —  the  first 
of  that  race  of  bush  lopers,  half  savages,  half  noblemen,  to  render 
France  such  glorious  service  in  the  New  World. 

When  De  Monts  lost  the  monopoly  of  furs  in  Acadia,  Cham- 
plain,  the  court  geographer,  had  gone  home  from  Port  Royal  to 
France.  De  Monts  now  succeeds  in  obtaining  a  fresh  monopoly 
for  one  year  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  sends  out  two  ships  in 
1608  under  his  old  friends,  Pontgrave,  who  is  to  attend  to  the 
bartering,  Champlain,  who  is  to  explore.  With  them  come  some 
of  the  colonists  from  Port  Royal,  among  others  Louis  Hebert, 
the  chemist,  first  colonist  to  become  farmer  at  Quebec,  and 
Abraham  Martin,  whose  name  was  given  to  the  famous  plains 
where  Wolfe  and  Montcalm  later  fought. 

Pontgrave  arrived  at  the  rendezvous  of  Tadoussac  early  in 
June.    Here  he  found  Basque  fishermen  engaged  in  the  peltry 


CHAMPLAIN  ON  THE  ST.  LAWRENCE 


45 


traffic  with  Indians  from  Labrador.  When  Pontgrave  read  his 
commission  interdicting  all  ships  but  those  of  De  Monts  from 
trade,  the  Basques  poured  a  fusillade  of  musketry  across  his 
decks,  killed  one  man,  wounded  two,  then  boarded  his  vessel 
and  trundled  his  cannon  ashore.  So  much  for  royal  commissions 
and  monopoly  ! 

At   this  stage  came   Champlain  on  the  second   boat.     Two 
vessels  were  overstrong  for  the  Basques.    They  quickly  came  to 


TADOUSSAC 
(From  Champlain's  map) 

terms  and  decamped.  Champlain  steered  his  tiny  craft  on  up 
the  silver  flood  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  that  Cape  Diamond 
where  Cartier's  men  had  gathered  worthless  stones.  Between 
the  high  cliff  and  the  river  front,  not  far  from  the  market  place 
of  Quebec  City  to-day,  workmen  began  clearing  the  woods  for 
the  site  of  the  French  habitation.  The  little  fort  was  palisaded, 
of  course,  with  a  moat  outside  and  cannon  commanding  the  river. 
The  walls  were  loopholed  for  musketry  ;  and  inside  ran  a  gallery 
to  serve  as  lookout  and  defense.  Houses,  barracks,  garden,  and 
fresh-water  supply  completed  the  fort.    One  day,  as  Champlain 


46  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

worked  in  his  garden,  a  colonist  begged  to  speak  with  him. 
Champlain  stepped  into  the  woods.  The  man  then  blurted  out 
how  a  conspiracy  was  on  foot,  instigated  by  the  Basques,  to 
assassinate  Champlain,  seize  the  fort,  and  stab  any  man  who 
dared  to  resist.  One  of  Pontgrave's  small  boats  lay  at  anchor. 
Champlain  sent  for  the  pilot,  told  him  the  story  of  the  plot, 
gave  him  two  bottles  of  wine,  and  bade  him  invite  the  ringleaders 
on  board  that  night  to  drink.  The  ruse  worked.  The  ringleaders 
were  handcuffed,  the  other  colonists  awakened  in  the  fort  and 
told  that  the  plot  had  been  crushed.  The  body  of  Duval,  the 
chief  plotter,  in  pay  of  the  Basques,  swung  as  warning  from  a 
gibbet  ;  and  his  head  was  exposed  on  a  pike  to  the  birds  of  the 
air.  Though  Pontgrave  left  a  garrison  of  twenty-eight  when  he 
sailed  for  France,  less  than  a  dozen  men  had  survived  the  plague 
of  scurvy  when  the  ships  came  back  to  Champlain  in  1609. 

Champlain's  part  had  been  to  explore.  Now  that  his  fort  was 
built,  he  planned  to  do  this  by  allying  himself  with  the  Indians, 
who  came  down  to  trade  at  Quebec.  These  were  the  Hurons 
and  Montaignais,  the  former  from  the  Ottawa,  the  latter  from 
Labrador.  Both  waged  ceaseless  war  on  the  Iroquois  south  of 
the  St.  Lawrence.  After  bartering  their  furs  for  weapons  from 
the  traders,  the  allied  tribes  would  set  out  on  the  warpath 
against  the  Iroquois.  In  June,  Champlain  and  eleven  white  men 
accompanied  the  roving  warriors. 

The  way  led  from  the  St.  Lawrence  south,  up  the  River 
Richelieu.  Champlain's  boat  was  a  ponderous  craft  ;  and  when 
the  shiver  of  the  sparkling  rapids  came  with  a  roar  through  the 
dank  forest,  the  heavy  boat  had  to  be  sent  back  to  Quebec. 
Adopting  the  light  birch  canoe  of  the  Indian,  Champlain  went 
on,  accompanied  by  only  two  white  men.  Of  Indians,  there  were 
twenty-four  canoes  with  sixty  warriors.  For  the  first  part  of 
the  voyage  night  was  made  hideous  by  the  grotesque  war  dances 
of  the  braves  lashing  themselves  to  fury  by  scalp  raids  in  pan- 
tomime, or  by  the  medicine  men  holding  solemn  converse  with 
the  demons  of  earth  ;  the  tent  poles  of  the  medicine  lodge 
rocked  as   if   by  wind,  while  eldritch  howls  predicted  victory. 


CHAMPLAIN  AND  THE  IROQUOIS 


47 


Then  the  long  line  of  silent  canoes  had  spread  out  on  that 
upland  lake  named  after  Champlain,  the  heavily  forested  Adi- 
rondacks  breaking  the  sky  line  on  one  side,  the  Green  Mountains 
rolling  away  on  the  other.  Caution  now  marked  all  advance. 
The  Indians  paddled  only  at  night,  withdrawing  to  the  wooded 
shore  through  the  morning  mist  to  hide  in  the  undergrowth  for 
the  day.    This  was  the  land  of  the  Iroquois. 

On  July  29,  as  the  invaders  were  stealing  silently  along  the 
west  shore  near  Crown  Point  at  night  about  ten  o'clock,  there 
were  seen  by  the  starlight,  coming  over  the  water  with  that 


DEFEAT  OF  THE  IROQUOIS 

(From  Champlain's  drawing) 

peculiar  galloping  motion  of  paddlers  dipping  together,  the  Iro- 
quois war  canoes.  Each  side  recognized  the  other,  and  the 
woods  rang  with  shouts  ;  but  gathering  clouds  and  the  mist 
rising  from  the  river  screened  the  foes  from  mutual  attack, 
though  the  night  echoed  to  shout  and  countershout  and  chal- 
lenge and  abuse.  Through  the  half  light  Champlain  could  see 
that  the  Iroquois  were  working  like  beavers  erecting  a  barricade 
of  logs.  The  assailants  kept  to  their  canoes  under  cover  of 
bull-hide  shields  till  daylight,  when  Champlain  buckled  on  his 
armor — breastplate, helmet,  thigh  pieces — and  landing,  advanced. 
There  were  not  less  than  two  hundred  Iroquois.  Outnumbering 
the  Hurons  three  times  over,  they  uttered  a  jubilant  whoop  and 


48  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

came  on  at  a  rush,  Champlain  and  his  two  white  men  took  aim. 
The  foremost  chiefs  dropped  in  their  tracks.  Terrified  by  "  the 
sticks  that  thundered  and  spat  fire,"  the  Iroquois  fell  back  in 
amaze,  halted,  then  fled.  The  victory  was  complete  ;  but  it  left 
as  a  legacy  to  New  France  the  undying  enmity  of  the  Iroquois. 

When  Champlain  came  out  from  France  in  1610,  he  would 
have  repeated  the  raid  ;  but  a  fight  with  invading  Iroquois  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Richelieu  delayed  him,  and  the  expiration  of 
De  Monts'  monopoly  took  him  back  to  France. 

In  161 1  trade  was  free  to  all  comers.  Fur  traders  flocked  to 
the  St.  Lawrence  like  birds  of  passage.  The  only  way  to  secure 
furs  for  De  Monts  was  to  go  higher  up  the  river  beyond  Quebec  ; 
and  ascending  to  Montreal,  Champlain  built  a  factory  called 
Place  Royale,  with  a  wall  of  bricks  to  resist  the  ice  jam.  This 
was  the  third  French  fort  Champlain  helped  to  found  in  Canada. 

Presently,  on  his  tracks  to  Montreal,  came  a  flock  of  free 
traders.  When  the  Hurons  come  shooting  down  the  foamy 
rapids  —  here,  a  pole-shove  to  avoid  splitting  canoes  on  a  rock  in 
mid-rush ;  there,  a  dexterous  whirl  from  the  trough  of  a  back  wash 
—  the  fur  traders  fire  off  their  guns  in  welcome.  The  Hurons  are 
suspicious.  What  means  it,  these  white  men,  coming  in  such  num- 
bers, firing  off  their  "sticks  that  thunder"?  At  midnight  they 
come  stealthily  to  Champlain' s  lodge  to  complain.  Peltries  and 
canoes,  the  Indians  transfer  themselves  above  the  rapids,  and 
later  conduct  Champlain  down  those  same  white  whirlpools  to 
the  uneasy  amaze  of  the  explorer. 

It  is  clear  to  Champlain  he  must  obtain  royal  patronage  to 
stem  the  boldness  of  these  free  traders.  In  France  he  obtains 
the  favor  of  the  Bourbons  ;  and  he  obtains  it  more  generously 
because  the  world  of  Paris  has  gone  agog  about  a  fabulous  tale 
that  sets  the  court  by  the  ears.  From  the  first  Champlain  has 
encouraged  young  Frenchmen  to  winter  with  the  Indian  hunters 
and  learn  the  languages.  Brule  is  with  them  now.  Nicholas 
Vignau  has  just  come  back  from  the  Ottawa  with  a  fairy  story 
of  a  marvelous  voyage  he  has  made  with   the  Indians  through 


CHAMPLAIN   EXPLORES  THE  OTTAWA  49 

the  forests  to  the  Sea  of  the  North  —  the  sea  where  Henry  Hud- 
son, the  Englishman,  had  perished.  As  the  romance  gains  the 
ear  of  the  public,  the  young  man  waxes  eloquent  in  detail,  and 
tells  of  the  number  of  Englishmen  living  there.  Champlain  is 
ordered  to  follow  this  exploration  up. 

May,  161 3,  he  is  back  at  Montreal,  opposite  that  island  named 
St.  Helen,  after  the  frail  girl  who  became  his  wife,  preparing  to 
ascend  the  Ottawa  with  four  white  men  —  among  them  Vignau. 
What  Vignau's  sensations  were,  one  may  guess.  The  vain  youth 
had  not  meant  his  love  of  notoriety  to  carry  him  so  far ;  and  he 
must  have  known  that  every  foot  of  the  way  led  him  nearer 
detection  ;  but  the  liar  is  always  a  gambler  with  chance.  Mis- 
hap, bad  weather,  Indian  war  —  might  drive  Champlain  back. 
Vignau  assumed  bold  face. 

The  path  followed  was  that  river  trail  up  the  Ottawa  which 
was  to  become  the  highway  of  empire's  westward  march  for  two 
and  a  half  centuries.  Mount  Royal  is  left  to  the  rear  as  the 
voyageurs  traverse  the  Indian  trail  through  the  forests  along  the 
rapids  to  that  launching  place  named  after  the  patron  saint  of 
French  voyageur — Ste.  Anne's.  The  river  widens  into  the  silver 
expanse  of  Two  Mountains  Lake,  rimmed  to  the  sky  line  by  the 
vernal  hills,  with  a  silence  and  solitude  over  all,  as  when  sunlight 
first  fell  on  face  of  man.  Here  the  eagle  utters  a  lonely  scream 
from  the  top  of  some  blasted  pine  ;  there  a  covey  of  ducks, 
catching  sight  of  the  coming  canoes,  dive  to  bottom,  only  to 
reappear  a  gunshot  away.  Where  the  voyageurs  land  for  their 
nooning,  or  camp  at  nightfall,  or  pause  to  gum  the  splits  in 
their  birch  canoes,  the  forest  in  the  full  flush  of  spring  verdure 
is  a  fairy  woods.  Against  the  elms  and  the  maples  leafing  out 
in  airy  tracer)-  that  reveals  the  branches  bronze  among  the  bud- 
ding green,  stand  the  silver  birches,  and  the  somber  hemlocks, 
and  the  resinous  pines.  Upbursting  from  the  mold  below  is 
another  miniature  forest  —  a  forest  of  ferns  putting  out  the  hairy 
fronds  that  in  another  month  will  be  above  the  height  of  a  man. 
Overhead,  like  a  flame  of  fire,  flashes  the  scarlet  tanager  with 
his  querulous  call;   or   the   oriole   flits  from  branch  to  branch, 


50  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

fluting  his  springtime  notes  ;  or  the  yellow  warbler  balances  on 
topmost  spray  to  sing  his  crisp  love  song  on  the  long  journey 
north  to  nest  on  Hudson  Bay.  And  over  all  and  in  all,  intangible 
as  light,  intoxicating  as  wine,  is  the  tang  of  the  clear,  unsullied, 
crystal  air,  setting  the  blood  coursing  with  new  life.  Little 
wonder  that  Brule,  and  Vignau,  and  other  young  men  whom 
Champlain  sent  to  the  woods  to  learn  wood  lore,  became  so 
enamored  of  the  life  that  they  never  returned  to  civilization. 

Presently  the  sibilant  rush  of  waters  forewarns  rapids.  Indians 
and  voyageurs  debark,  invert  canoes  on  their  shoulders,  packs  on 
back  with  straps  across  foreheads,  and  amble  away  over  the 
portages  at  that  voyageurs'  dog-trot  which  is  half  walk,  half  run. 
So  the  rapids  of  Carillon  and  Long  Saut  are  ascended.  Night  time 
is  passed  on  some  sandy  shore  on  a  bed  under  the  stars,  or  under 
the  canoes  turned  upside  down.  Tents  are  erected  only  for  the 
commander,  Champlain  ;  and  at  day  dawn,  while  the  tips  of  the 
trees  are  touched  with  light  and  the  morning  mist  is  smoking 
up  from  the  river  shot  with  gold,  canoes  are  again  on  the  water 
and  paddle  blades  tossing  the  waves  behind. 

The  Laurentian  Hills  now  roll  from  the  river  in  purpling  folds 
like  fields  of  heather.  The  Gatineau  is  passed,  winding  in  on  the 
right  through  dense  forests.  On  the  left,  flowing  through  the  roll- 
ing sand  hills,  and  joining  the  main  river  just  where  the  waters 
fall  over  n  precipice  in  a  cataract  of  spray,  is  the  Rideau  River 
with  its  famous  falls  resembling  the  white  folds  of  a  wind-blown 
curtain.  Then  the  voyageurs  have  swept  round  that  wooded  cliff 
known  as  Parliament  Hill,  jutting  out  in  the  river,  and  there  breaks 
on  view  a  wall  of  water  hurtling  down  in  shimmering  floods  at  the 
Chaudiere  Falls.  The  high  cliff  to  the  left  and  countercurrent 
from  the  falls  swirl  the  canoes  over  on  the  right  side  to  the 
sandy  flats  where  the  lumber  piles  to-day  defile  the  river.  Here 
boats  are  once  more  hauled  up  for  portage  —  a  long  portage,  nine 
miles,  all  the  way  to  the  modern  town  of  Aylmer,  where  the  river 
becomes  wide  as  a  lake,  Lake  Du  Chene  of  the  oak  forests.  Here 
camp  for  the  night  was  made,  and  leaks  in  the  canoes  mended 
with  resin,  round  fires  gleaming  red  as  an  angry  eye  across  the 


CHAMPLAIN  WITH  THE  INDIANS  51 

darkening  waters,  while  the  prowling  wild  eats  and  lynx,  which 
later  gave  such  good  hunting  in  these  forests  that  the  adjoining 
rapids  became  known  as  the  Chats,  sent  their  unearthly  screams 
shivering  through  the  darkness. 

Somewhere  near  Allumette  Isle,  Champlain  came  to  an  Indian 
settlement  of  the  Ottawa  tribe.  He  camped  to  ask  for  guides 
to  go  on.  Old  Chief  Tessouat  holds  solemn  powwow,  passing 
the  peace  pipe  round  from  hand  to  hand  in  silence,  before  the 
warriors  rise  to  answer  Champlain.  Then  with  the  pompous 
gravity  of  Abraham  dickering  with  the  desert  tribes,  they  warn 
Champlain  it  is  unsafe  to  go  farther.  Beyond  the  Ottawa  is  the 
Nipissing,  where  dwell  the  Sorcerer  Indians  —  a  treacherous 
people.  Beyond  the  Nipissing  is  the  great  Fresh  Water  Sea  of 
the  Hurons.  They  will  grant  Champlain  canoes,  but  warn  him 
against  the  trip.  Later  the  interpreter  comes  with  word  they 
have  changed  their  minds.  Champlain  must  not  go  on.  It  is  too 
dangerous.    Attack  would  involve  war. 

"  What,"  demanded  Champlain,  rushing  into  the  midst  of  the 
council  tent,  "not  go?  Why,  my  young  man,  here"  —  pointing 
to  Vignau  —  "  has  gone  to  that  country  and  found  no  danger." 

What  Vignau  thought  at  that  stage  is  not  told.  The  Indians 
turned  on  him  in  fury. 

"  Nicholas,  did  you  say  you  had  visited  the  Nipissings  ?  " 

Vignau  hems  and  haws,  and  stammers,  "Yes." 

"  Liar,"  roars  the  chief.  "  You  slept  here  every  night,  and  if 
you  went  to  the  Nipissings,  you  went  in  a  dream."  Then  to 
Champlain,  "  Let  him  be  tortured." 

Champlain  took  the  fellow  to  his  own  tent.  Vignau  reiterated 
his  story.  Champlain  took  him  back  to  the  council.  The  Indians 
jeered  his  answers  and  tore  the  story  he  told  to  tatters,  showing 
Champlain  how  utterly  wrong  Vignau's  descriptions  were. 

That  night,  on  promise  of  forgiveness,  Vignau  fell  on  his  knees 
and  confessed  the  imposture  to  Champlain.  When  the  fur  canoes 
came  down  the  Ottawa  to  trade  at  Montreal,  Champlain  accom- 
panied them  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  sailed  for  France.  I  lis 
exploration  had  been  an  ignominious  failure. 


52  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Champlain  was  ever  Knight  of  the  Cross  as  well  as  explorer. 
He  longed  with  the  zeal  of  a  missionary  to  reclaim  the  Indians 
from  savagery,  and  at  last  raised  funds  in  France  to  pay  the 
expense  of  bringing  four  or  five  Recollets  —  a  branch  of  the 
Franciscan  Friars  —  to  Quebec  in  May  of  161 5.  With  the  peaked 
hood  thrown  back,  the  gray  garb  roped  in  at  the  waist,  the  bare 
feet  protected  only  by  heavy  sandals,  the  Recollets  landed  at 
Quebec,  and  with  cannon  booming,  white  men  all  on  bended 
knee,  held  service  before  the  amazed  savages. 

Of  the  Recollets,  it  was  agreed  that  Joseph  le  Caron  should 
go  west  to  the  Hurons  of  the  Sweet  Water  Sea.  Accompanied 
by  a  dozen  Frenchmen,  the  friar  ascended  the  Ottawa  in  July, 
passed  that  Allumette  Island  where  Vignau's  lie  had  been  con- 
fessed, and  proceeded  westward  to  the  land  of  the  Hurons. 
Nine  days  later  Champlain  followed  with  two  canoes,  ten  Indians, 
and  Etienne  Brule,  his  interpreter.  In  order  to  hold  the  ever- 
lasting loyalty  of  the  Hurons  and  Algonquins  in  Canada, 
Champlain  had  pledged  them  that  the  FTench  would  join  their 
twenty-five  hundred  warriors  in  a  great  invasion  of  the  Iroquois 
to  the  south.  It  was  to  be  a  war  not  of  aggression  but  of 
defense  ;  for  the  Five  Nations  of  the  Iroquois  in  New  York 
state  had  harried  the  Canadian  tribes  like  wolves  raiding  a 
sheep  pen.  No  Frenchman  cultivating  his  farm  patch  on  the 
St.  Lawrence  was  safe  from  ambuscade  ;  no  hunter  afield  secure 
from  a  chance  war  party. 

Any  tourist  crossing  Canada  to-day  can  trace  Champlain's 
voyage.  Where  the  rolling  tide  of  the  Ottawa  forks  at  Mattawa, 
there  comes  in  on  the  west  side,  through  dense  forests  and  cedar 
swamps,  a  river  amber-colored  with  the  wood-mold  of  centuries. 
This  is  the  Mattawa.  Up  the  Mattawa  Champlain  pushed  his 
canoes  westward,  up  the  shining  flood  of  the  river  yellow  as 
gold  where  the  waters  shallow  above  the  pebble  bottom.  Then 
the  gravel  grated  keels.  The  shallows  became  weed-grown 
swamps  that  entangled  the  paddles  and  hid  voyageur  from  voy- 
ageur  in  reeds  the  height  of  a  man  ;  and  presently  a  portage  over 
rocks  slippery  as  ice  leads  to  a  stream  flowing  westward,  opening 


DISCOVERY  OF  THE  GREAT  LAKES 


53 


on  a  low-lying,  clay-colored  lake  —  the  country  of  the  Nipissings, 
with  whom  Champlain  pauses  to  feast  and  hear  tales  of  witch- 
craft and  demon  lore,  that  gave  them  the  name  of  Sorcerers. 

In  a  few  sleeps — they  tell  him — he  will  reach  the  Sweet 
Water  Sea.  The  news  is  welcome  ;  for  the  voyageurs  are  down 
to  short  rations,  and  launch  eagerly  westward  on  the  stream 
draining  Nipissing  Lake  —  French  River.  This  is  a  tricky  little 
stream  in  whose  sands  lie  buried  the  bodies  of  countless  French 
voyageurs.  It  is  more  dangerous  going  with  rapids  than  against 
them  ;  for  the  hastening  current  is  sometimes  an  undertow, 
which  sweeps  the  canoes  into  the  rapids  before  the  roar  of  the 
waterfall  has  given  warning.    And  the  country  is  barren  of  game. 

As  they  cross  the  portages,  Champlain' s  men  are  glad  to  snatch 
at  the  raspberry  and  cranberry  bushes  for  food ;  and  their  night- 
time meal  is  dependent  on  chance  fishing.  Indian  hunters  are  met, 
—  three  hundred  of  them,  —  the  Staring  Hairs,  so  named  from 
the  upright  posture  of  their  headdress  tipped  by  an  eagle  quill ; 
and  again  Champlain  is  told  he  is  very  near  the  Inland  Sea. 

It  comes  as  discoveries  nearly  always  come  —  his  finding  of 
the  Great  Lakes  ;  for  though  Joseph  Le  Caron,  the  missionary, 
had  passed  this  way  ten  days  ago,  the  zealous  priest  never  paused 
to  explore  and  map  the  region.  You  are  paddling  down  the 
brown,  forest-shadowed  waters  —  long  lanes  of  water  like  canals 
through  walls  of  trees  silent  as  sentinels.  Suddenly  a  change 
almost  imperceptible  comes.  Instead  of  the  earthy  smell  of  the 
forest  mold  in  your  nostrils  is  the  clear  tang  of  sun-bathed, 
water-washed  rocks  ;  and  the  sky  begins  to  swim,  to  lose  itself 
at  the  horizon.  There  is  no  sudden  bursting  of  a  sea  on  your 
view.  The  river  begins  to  coil  in  and  out  among  islands.  The 
amber  waters  have  become  sheeted  silver.  You  wind  from  island 
to  island,  islands  of  pink  granite,  islands  with  no  tree  but  one 
lone  blasted  pine,  islands  that  are  in  themselves  forests.  There 
is  no  end  to  these  islands.  They  are  not  in  hundreds ;  they  are 
in  thousands.  Then  you  see  the  spray  breaking  over  the  reefs, 
and  there  is  its  sky  line.  You  are  not  on  a  river  at  all.  You  are 
on  an  inland  sea.     You  have  been  on  the  lake  for  hours.     One 


54 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


can  guess  how  Champlain's  men  scrambled  from  island  to  island, 
and  fished  for  the  rock  bass  above  the  deep  pools,  and  ran  along 
the  water  line  of  wave-dashed  reefs,  wondering  vaguely  if  the 
wind  wash  were  the  ocean  tide  of  the  Western  Sea. 

But  Champlain's  Huron  guides  had  not  come  to  find  a  West- 
ern Sea.  With  the  quick  choppy  stroke  of  the  Indian  paddler 
they  were  conveying  him  down  that  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Huron 
now  known  as  Georgian  Bay,  from  French  River  to  Parry  Sound 
and  Midland  and  Penetang.  Where  these  little  towns  to-day 
stand  on  the  hillsides  was  a  howling  wilderness  of  forest,  with 
never  a  footprint  but  the  zigzagging  trail  of  the  Indians  back 
from  Georgian  Bay  to  what  is  now  Lake  Simcoe. 

Between  these  two  shores  lay  the  stamping  grounds  of  the 
great  Huron  tribe.  How  numerous  were  they  ?  Records  differ. 
Certainly  at  no  time  more  numerous  than  thirty  thousand  souls 
all  told,  including  children.  Though  they  yearly  came  to  Montreal 
for  trade  and  war,  the  Hurons  were  sedentary,  living  in  the  long 
houses  of  bark  inclosed  by  triple  palisades,  such  as  Cartier  had 
seen  at  Hochelaga  almost  a  century  before. 

Champlain  followed  his  supple  guides  along  the  wind-fallen 
forest  trail  to  the  Huron  villages.  Here  he  found  the  missionary. 
One  can  guess  how  the  souls  of  these  two  heroes  burned  as  the 
deep  solemn  chant  of  the  Te  Deum  for  the  first  time  rolled 
through  the  forests  of  Lake  Huron. 

But  now  Champlain  must  to  business ;  and  his  business  is 
war.  Brule  and  twelve  Indians  are  sent  like  the  carriers  of  the 
fiery  cross  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  to  rally  tribes  of  the 
Susquehanna  to  join  the  Hurons  against  the  Iroquois.  A  wild 
war  dance  is  held  with  mystic  rites  in  the  lodges  of  the  Hurons  ; 
and  the  braves  set  out  with  Champlain  from  Lake  Simcoe  for 
Lake  Ontario  by  way  of  Trent  River.  As  they  near  what  is 
now  New  York  state,  buckskin  is  flung  aside,  the  naked  bodies 
painted  and  greased,  and  the  trail  shunned  for  the  pathless 
woods  off  the  beaten  track  where  the  Indians  glide  like  beasts 
of  prey  through  the  frost-tinted  forest. 


WAR  WITH  THE  IROQUOIS 


55 


October  9  they  suddenly  come  on  some  Onondagas  fishing,  and 
they  begin  torturing  their  captives  by  cutting  off  a  girl's  finger, 
when  Champlain  commands  them  to  desist.  Presently  the  forest 
opens  to  a  farm  clearing  where  the  Iroquois  are  harvesting  their 
corn.  Spite  of  all  Champlain  could  do,  the  wild  Hurons  uttered 
their  war  cry  and  rushed  the  field,  but  the  Iroquois  turned  on 


IJ^B^M-^^-.'-:; '.- :-      (: 


ft.  %  '  *4a&%,     1  Mill  -i-Vci_  *&£&* 

sgs v- 

MP 


THE  ONONDAGA  FORT 
(From  Champlain's  diagram) 

the  rabble  and  drove  them  back  to  the  woods.  Champlain  was 
furious.  They  should  have  waited  for  Brule  to  come  with  their 
allies;  and  the  foolish  attack  had  only  served  to  forewarn  the 
enemy.  He  frankly  told  the  Hurons  if  they  were  going  to  fight 
under  his  command,  they  must  fight  as  white  men  fight ;  and  he 
set  them  to  building  a  platform  from  which  marksmen  could 
shoot  over  the  walls  of  the  Iroquois  town.    But  the  admonitions 


56 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


fell  on  frenzied  ears.  No  sooner  was  the  command  to  advance 
given  than  the  Hurons  broke  from  cover  like  maniacs,  easy  marks 
for  the  javelin  throwers  inside  the  walls,  and  hurled  themselves 
against  the  Iroquois  palisades  in  blind  fury,  making  more  din  with 
yelling  than  woe  with  shots.  Boiling  water  poured  from  the 
galleries  inside  drove  the  braves  back  from  the  walls,  and  the 


Abitation.de 

Q.VEBECQ.    ^ 


VIEW  OF  QUEBEC 
(From  Champlain's  plan) 

poisoned  barb  of  the  Iroquois  arrows  pursued  their  flight.  A  score 
fell  wounded,  among  them  Champlain  with  an  arrow  in  his  knee- 
cap. The  flight  became  panic  fast  and  furious,  with  the  wounded 
carried  on  wicker  stretchers  whose  every  jolt  added  agony  to  pain. 
As  for  Brule,  he  arrived  with  the  allies  only  to  find  that  the 
Hurons  had  fled,  and  here  was  he,  alone  in  a  hostile  land,  with 
Iroquois  warriors  rampant  as  molested  wasps.  In  the  swift 
retreat  off  the   trail  Brule  lost  his  way.    He  was  without  food 


CONFLICTING  INTERESTS  IN   NEW  FRANCE  57 

or  powder,  and  had  to  choose  between  starvation  or  surrender 
to  the  Iroquois.  Throwing  down  his  weapons,  he  gave  himself 
up  to  what  he  knew  would  be  certain  torture.  Had  he  winced 
or  whined  as  they  tore  the  nails  from  his  fingers  and  the  hair 
from  his  head,  the  Iroquois  would  probably  have  brained  him  on 
the  spot  for  a  poltroon  ;  but  the  young  man,  bound  to  a  stake, 
pointed  to  a  gathering  storm  as  sign  of  Heaven's  displeasure. 
The  high  spirit  pleased  the  Iroquois.  They  unbound  him  and 
took  him  with  them  in  their  wanderings  for  three  years. 

The  Hurons  had  promised  to  convey  Champlain  back  down 
the  St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec,  but  the  defeat  had  caused  loss  of 
prestige.  The  man  "with  the  stick  that  thundered"  was  no 
more  invulnerable  to  wounds  than  they.  They  forgot  their 
promises  and  invented  excuses  for  not  proceeding  to  Quebec. 
Champlain  wintered  with  the  hunters  somewhere  north  of  Lake 
Ontario,  and  came  down  the  Ottawa  with  the  fur  canoes  the  next 
summer.    He  was  received  at  Quebec  as  one  risen  from  the  dead. 

While  Champlain  had  been  exploring,  New  France  had  not 
prospered  as  a  colony.  Royal  patron  after  royal  patron  sold 
the  monopoly  to  fresh  hands,  and  each  new  master  appointed 
Champlain  viceroy.  The  fur  trade  merchants  could  pay  forty 
per  cent  dividends,  but  could  do  nothing  to  advance  settlement. 
Less  than  one  hundred  people  made  up  the  population  of  New 
France  ;  and  these  were  torn  asunder  by  jealousies.  Huguenot 
and  Catholic  were  opposed  ;  and  when  three  Jesuits  came  to 
Quebec,  Jesuits  and   Recollets  distrusted  each  other. 

Madam  Champlain  joined  her  husband  at  Quebec,  in  1620,  to 
stay  for  four  years,  and  that  same  year  Champlain  built  himself 
a  new  habitation  —  the  famous  Castle  of  St.  Louis  on  the  cliff 
above  the  first  dwelling.  Louis  Hebert,  the  apothecary  of  Port 
Royal,  is  now  a  farmer  close  to  the  Castle  of  Quebec  ;  and  the 
wife  of  Abraham  Martin  has  given  birth  to  the  first  white  child 
born  in  New  France. 

Now  came  a  revolutionary  change.  Cardinal  Richelieu  was 
virtual  ruler  of  France.    He  quickly  realized  that  the  monopolists 


58  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

were  sucking  the  lifeblood  of  the  colony  in  furs  and  were 
giving  nothing  in  return  to  the  country.  In  1627,  under  the 
great  cardinal's  patronage,  the  Company  of  One  Hundred  Asso- 
ciates was  formed.  In  this  company  any  of  the  seaport  traders 
could  buy  shares.  Indeed,  they  were  promised  patent  of  nobility 
if  they  did  buy  shares.  Exclusive  monopoly  of  furs  was  given 
to  the  company  from  Florida  to  Labrador.  In  return  the  Asso- 
ciates were  to  send  two  ships  yearly  to  Canada.  Before  1643 
they  were  to  bring  out  four  thousand  colonists,  support  them 
for  three  years,  and  give  them  land.  In  each  settlement  were  to 
be  supported  three  priests  ;  and,  to  prevent  discord,  Huguenots 
were  to  be  banished  from  New  France. 

To  Champlain  it  must  have  seemed  as  if  the  ambition  of  his  life 
were  to  be  realized.  Just  when  the  sky  seemed  clearest  the  bolt  fell. 

Early  in  April,  1628,  the  Associates  had  dispatched  colonists 
and  stores  for  Quebec  ;  but  war  had  broken  out  between  France 
and  England.  Gervais  Kirke,  an  English  Huguenot  of  Dieppe, 
France,  who  had  been  put  under  the  ban  by  Cardinal  Richelieu, 
had  rallied  the  merchants  of  London  to  tit  out  privateers  to 
wage  war  on  New  France.  The  vessels  were  commanded  by  the 
three  sons,  Thomas,  Louis,  and  David  ;  and  to  the  Kirkes  rallied 
many  Huguenots  banished  from  France. 

Quebec  was  hourly  looking  for  the  annual  ships,  when  one 
morning  in  July  two  men  rushed  breathless  through  the  woods 
and  up  the  steep  rock  to  Castle  St.  Louis  with  word  that  an 
English  fleet  of  six  frigates  lay  in  hiding  at  Tadoussac,  reach- 
to  pounce  on  the  French  !  Later  came  other  messengers  — 
Indians,  fishermen,  traders  —  confirming  the  terrible  news. 
Then  a  Basque  fisherman  arrives  with  a  demand  from  Kirke  for 
the  keys  to  the  fort.  Though  there  is  no  food  inside  the  walls, 
less  than  fifty  pounds  of  ammunition  in  the  storehouse,  and  not 
enough  men  to  man  the  guns,  Champlain  hopes  against  hope, 
and  sends  the  Basque  fisherman  back  with  suave  regrets  that 
he  cannot  comply  with  Monsieur  Kirke's  polite  request.  Que- 
bec's one  chance  lay  in  the  hope  that  the   French  vessels  might 


THE  ENGLISH  TAKE  QUEBEC 


59 


slip  past  the  English  frigates  by  night.  Days  wore  on  to  weeks, 
weeks  to  months,  and  a  thousand  rumors  filled  the  air ;  but  no  ships 
came.  The  people  of  Quebec  were  now  reduced  to  diet  of  nuts 
and  corn.  Then  came  Indian  runners  with  word  that  the  French 
ships  had  been  waylaid,  boarded,  scuttled,  and  sunk.  Loaded  to 
the  water  line  with  booty,  the  English  privateers  had  gorie  home. 
For  that  winter  Quebec  lived  on  such  food  as  the  Indians 
brought  in  from  the  woods.  By  the  summer  of  1629  men,  women, 
and  children  were  grubbing  for  roots,  fishing  for  food,  ranging  the 


*  s 


^     A        &  ft.       *■        *  (W' 


<*■  K      tf 


0>& 


QUEBEC 
(From  Champlain's  map) 

rocks  for  berries.  There  are  times  when  the  only  thing  to  do  is  — 
do  nothing  ;  and  it  is  probably  the  hardest  task  a  brave  man  ever 
has.  When  the  English  fleet  came  back  in  July  Champlain  had  a 
ragamuffin,  half-starved  retinue  of  precisely  sixteen  men.  Yet  he 
haggled  for  such  terms  that  the  English  promised  to  convey  the 
prisoners  to  France.  On  July  20,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  the 
red  flag  of  England  blew  to  the  winds  above  the  heights  of  Quebec. 


But  New  France  was  only  a  pawn  to  the  gamesters  of  French 
and   English   diplomacy.     Peace  was  proclaimed ;    and    for   the 


60  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 

sake  of  receiving  $200,000  as  dowry  due  his  French  wife, 
Charles  of  England  restored  to  France  the  half  continent  which 
the  Kirkes  had  captured,  David  Kirke  receiving  the  paltry  honor 
of  a  title  as  compensation  for  the  loss.  Champlain  was  back  in 
Quebec  by  1633  ;  but  his  course  had  run.  Between  Christmas 
eve  and  Christmas  morning,  in  1635,  the  brave  Soldier  of  the 
Cross,  the  first  knight  of  the  Canadian  wildwoods,  passed  from 
the  sphere  of  earthly  life  —  a  life  without  a  stain,  whether 
among  the  intriguing  courtiers  of  Paris  or  in  the  midst  of  naked 
license  in  the  Indian  camp. 


CHAPTER  IV 
FROM  1635  TO  1666 

When  Port  Royal  fell  before  Argall,  it  will  be  remembered, 
young  Biencourt  took  to  the  woods  with  his  French  bush  lopers 
and  Indian  followers  of  Nova  Scotia.  The  farms  and  fort  of 
Annapolis  Basin  granted  to  his  father  by  special  patents  lay  in 
ruins.  Familiar  with  the  woods  as  the  English  buccaneer,  who 
had  destroyed  the  fort,  was  with  his  ship's  cabin,  Biencourt 
withdrew  to  the  southwest  corner  of  Nova  Scotia,  where  he 
built  a  rude  stronghold  of  logs  and  slabs  near  the  modern  Cape 
Sable.  Here  he  could  keep  in  touch  with  the  French  fishermen 
off  Cape  Breton,  and  also  traffic  with  the  Indians  of  the  mainland. 

With  Biencourt  was  a  young  man  of  his  own  age,  boon  com- 
rade, kindred  spirit,  who  had  come  to  Port  Royal  a  boy  of  four- 
teen, in  1606,  in  the  gay  days  of  Marc  L'Escarbot  —  Charles  de 
La  Tour.  Sea  rovers,  bush  lopers,  these  two  could  bid  defiance 
to  English  raiders.  Whether  Biencourt  died  in  1623  or  went 
home  to  France  is  unknown;  but  he  deeded  over  to  his  friend, 
Charles  de  La  Tour,  all  possessions  in  Acadia. 

And  now  England  again  comes  on  the  scene.  By  virtue  of 
Cabot's  discovery  and  Argall's  conquest,  the  King  of  England, 
in  1 62 1,  grants  to  Sir  William  Alexander,  the  Earl  of  Stirling, 
all  of  Acadia,  renamed  Nova  Scotia  —  New  Scotland.  By  way 
of  encouraging  emigration,  the  order  of  Nova  Scotia  Baronets  is 
created,  a  title  being  granted  to  those  who  subscribe  to  the 
colonization  company. 

Sir  William  Alexander's  colonists  shun  the  French  bush  lopers 
under  Charles  de  La  Tour  down  at  Fort  St.  Louis  on  Cape 
Sable.  The  seventy  Scotch  colonists  go  on  up  the  Annapolis 
Basin  and  build  their  fort  four  miles  from  old  Port  Royal.  How 
did  they  pass  the  pioneer  years  —  these  Scotch  retainers  of  the 

61 


62      CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Nova  Scotia  Baronets  ?  Report  among  the  French  fishing  fleet 
says  thirty  died  of  scurvy;  but  of  definite  information  not  a  ves- 
tige remains.  The  annals  of  these  colonists  are  as  completely  lost 
to  history  as  the  annals  of  the  lost  Roanoke  colony  in  Virginia. 

Under  the  same  English  patent  Lord  Ochiltree  lands  English 
colonists  in  Cape  Breton,  the  grand  summer  rendezvous  of  the 
French  fishermen ;   but  two  can  play  at  Argall's  game  of  raids. 

French  seamen  swoop 
down  on  Ochiltree's 
colony,  capture  fifty, 
destroy  the  settlement, 
and  run  up  the  white 
flag  of  France  in  place 
of  the  red  standard  of 
England. 

Charles  de  La  Tour 
with  his  Huguenots 
hides  safely  ensconced 
behind  his  slab  palisades 
with  the  swarthy  faces 
of  half  a  hundred  Indian 
retainers  lighted  up  by 
the  huge  logs  at  blaze 
on  the  hearth.  Charles 
de  La  Tour  takes  coun- 
sel with  himself.  English 

SIR  WILLIAM  ALEXANDER  t.       .     t.  it-        i-   i 

.  at  Port  Royal,  English 
at  Cape  Breton,  English  on  the  mainland  at  Boston,  English  ships 
passing  and  repassing  his  lone  lodge  in  the  wilderness,  he  will 
be  safer,  will  Charles  de  La  Tour,  with  wider  distance  between 
himself  and  the  foe  ;  and  he  will  take  more  peltries  where  there 
are  fewer  traders.  Still  keeping  his  fort  in  Nova  Scotia,  La 
Tour  goes  across  Fundy  Bay  and  builds  him  a  second,  stronger 
fort  on  St.  John  River,  New  Brunswick,  near  where  Carleton 
town  stands  to-day. 

Then  two  things  happened  that  upset  all  plans. 


FRAYS    BETWEEN   LA  TOUR  AND  CHARNISAY         63 

The  Hundred  Associates  are  given  all  Canada  —  Quebec  and 
Acadia.  Founded  by  Cardinal  Richelieu,  the  Hundred  Asso- 
ciates are  violently  Catholic,  violently  anti-Protestant.  Charles 
de  La  Tour  need  expect  no  favors,  if  indeed  the  grant  that  he 
holds  from  Biencourt  be  not  assailed.  Double  reason  for  moving 
the  most  of  his  possessions  across  Fundy  Bay  to  St.  John  River. 

Then  the  Englishmen,  under  the  Kirke  brothers,  capture 
Quebec.  As  luck  or  ill  luck  will  have  it,  among  the  French 
captured  from  the  French  ships  of  the  Hundred  Associates 
down  at  Tadoussac,  is  Claude  de  La  Tour,  the  father  of  Charles. 
Claude  de  La  Tour  was  a  Protestant.  This  and  his  courtly 
manner  and  his  noble  birth  commended  him  to  the  English 
court.  What  had  France  done  for  Claude  de  La  Tour  ?  Placed 
him  under  the  ban  on  account  of  his  religion. 

Claude  de  La  Tour  promptly  became  a  British  subject,  re- 
ceived the  title  Baronet  of  Nova  Scotia  with  enormous  grants 
of  land  on  St.  John  River,  New  Brunswick,  married  an  English 
lady  in  waiting  to  the  Queen,  and  sailed  with  three  men-of-war 
for  Nova  Scotia  to  win  over  his  son  Charles.  No  writer  like  Ma-rc 
Lescarbot  was  present  to  describe  the  meeting  between  father 
and  son  ;  but  one  can  guess  the  stormy  scene, —  the  war  between 
love  of  country  and  love  of  father,  the  guns  of  the  father's  vessels 
pointing  at  the  son's  fort,  the  guns  of  the  son's  fort  pointing  at 
the  father's  vessels.  The  father's  arguments  were  strong.  What 
had  France  done  for  the  La  Tours  ?  By  siding  with  England 
they  would  receive  safe  asylum  in  case  of  persecution  and  enor- 
mous grants  of  land  on  St.  John  River.  But  the  son's  arguments 
were  stronger.  The  father  must  know  from  his  English  bride  — 
maid  in  waiting  to  the  English  Queen  —  that  England  had  no 
intentions  of  keeping  her  newly  captured  possessions  in  Canada, 
but  had  already  decided  to  trade  them  back  to  France  for  a 
dowry  to  the  English  Queen.  If  Canada  were  given  back  to 
F ranee,  what  were  English  grants  in  New  Brunswick  worth  ? 
"  If  those  who  sent  you  think  me  capable  of  betraying  my  coun- 
try even  at  the  prayer  of  my  father,  they  are  mightily  mistaken," 
thundered  the  young  man,  ordering  his  gunners  to  their  places. 


64 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


"  I  don't  purchase  honors  by  crime  !  I  don't  undervalue  the 
offer  of  England's  King;  but  the  King  of  France  is  just  as  able 
to  reward  me  !  The  King  of  France  has  confided  the  defense  of 
Acadia  to  me  ;   and  I'll  defend  it  to  my  last  breath." 

Stung  by  his  son's  rebuke,  the  elder  La  Tour  retired  to  his 
ship,  wrote  one  more  unavailing  appeal,  then  landed  his  mariners 
to  rush  the  fort.  But  the  rough  bush  lopers  inside  the  palisades 
were  expert  marksmen.  Their  raking  cross  fire  kept  the  Eng- 
lish at  a  distance,  and  the  father  could  neither  drive  nor  coax 

his  men  to  the  sticking 
point  of  courage  to  scale 
palisades  in  such  an  un- 
natural war.  Claude  de 
La  Tour  was  now  in  an 
unenviable  plight.  He 
dare  not  go  back  to 
France  a  traitor.  He 
could  not  go  back  to 
England,  having  failed 
to  win  the  day.  The 
son  built  him  a  dwelling 
outside  the  fort ;  and 
there  this  famous  court- 
ier of  two  great  nations, 
with  his  noble  wife,  re- 
tired to  pass  the  end 
of  his  days  in  a  wildwood  wilderness  far  enough  from  the  gaudy 
tinsel  of  courts.    The  fate  of  both  husband  and  wife  is  unknown. 


r,\r  r>i>;  sat.i.t: 


Scale :-G  miles  to  1  Im-li 


MAP  SHOWING  LA  TOURS  POSSESSIONS 
IN  ACADIA 


Charles  de  La  Tour's  predictions  were  soon  verified.  The 
Treaty  of  St. -Germain-en- Laye,  in  1632,  gave  back  all  Canada 
to  France  ;  and  the  young  man's  loyalty  was  rewarded  by  the 
French  King  confirming  the  father's  English  patent  to  the  lands 
of  St.  John  River,  New  Brunswick.  Perhaps  he  expected  more. 
He  certainly  wanted  to  be  governor  of  Acadia,  and  may  have 
looked  for  fresh  title  to  Port  Royal,  which  Biencourt  had  deeded 


FRAYS  BETWEEN   LA  TOUR  AND   CHARNISAY  65 

to  him.  His  ambition  was  embittered.  Cardinal  Richelieu  of 
the  Hundred  Associates  had  his  own  favorites  to  look  after. 
Acadia  is  divided  into  three  provinces.  Over  all  as  governor  is 
Isaac  Razilli,  chief  of  the  Hundred  Associates.  La  Tour  holds 
St.  John.  One  St.  Denys  is  given  Cape  Breton  ;  and  Port  Royal, 
the  best  province  of  all,  falls  to  Sieur  d'Aulnay  de  Charnisay, 
friend  and  relative  of  Richelieu  ;  and  when  Razilli  dies  in  1635, 
Charnisay,  with  his  strong  influence  at  court,  easily  secures  the 
dead  man's  patents  with  all  land  grants  attached.  Charnisay 
becomes  governor  of  Acadia. 

For  a  second  time  La  Tour  is  thwarted.  Things  are  turning- 
out  as  his  father  had  foretold.  Who  began  the  border  warfare 
matters  little.  Whether  Charnisay  as  lord  of  all  Acadia  first 
ordered  La  Tour  to  surrender  St.  John,  or  La  Tour,  holding  his 
grant  from  Biencourt  to  Port  Royal,  ordered  Charnisay  to  give 
up  Annapolis  Basin,  war  had  begun, — such  border  warfare  as 
has  its  parallel  only  in  the  raids  of  rival  barons  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  Did  La  Tour's  vessels  laden  with  furs  slip  out  from  St. 
John  River  across  Fundy  Bay  bound  for  France  ?  There  lay  at 
Cape  Sable  and  Sable  Island  Charnisay's  freebooters,  Charni- 
say's  wreckers,  ready  to  board  the  ship  or  lure  her  a  wreck  on 
Sable  Island  reefs  by  false  lights.  It  is  unsafe  to  accept  as  facts 
the  charges  and  countercharges  made  by  these  two  enemies ; 
but  from  independent  sources  it  seems  fairly  certain  that  Char- 
nisay, unknown  to  Cardinal  Richelieu,  was  a  bit  of  a  freebooter 
and  wrecker ;  for  his  men  made  a  regular  business  of  waylaying 
English  ships  from  Boston,  Dutch  ships  from  New  York,  as 
they  passed  Sable  Island  ;  and  Charnisay's  name  became  cor- 
dially hated  by  the  Protestant  colonies  of  New  England.  La 
Tour,  being  Huguenot,  could  count  on  firm  friends  in  Boston. 

Countless  legends  cling  to  Fundy  Bay  of  the  forays  between 
these  two.  In  1640  La  Tour  and  his  wife,  cruising  past  Annap- 
olis Basin  in  their  fur  ships,  rashly  entered  and  attacked  Port 
Royal.  Their  ship  was  run  aground  by  Charnisay's  vessels  and 
captured  ;  but  the  friars  persuaded  the  victor  to  set  La  Tour 
and  his  wife   free,  pending  an  appeal   to   France.     France,  of 


66 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


course,  decided  in  favor  of  Charnisay,  who  was  of  royal  blood, 
a  relative  of  Richelieu's,  in  high  favor  with  the  court.  La  Tour's 
patent  was  revoked  and  he  was  ordered  to  surrender  his  fort  on 
the  St.  John. 

In  answer,  La  Tour  loaded  his  cannon,  locked  the  fort  gates, 
and  bade  defiance  to  Charnisay.  Charnisay  sails  across  Fundy 
Bay  in  June,  1643,  with  a  fleet  of  four  vessels  and  five  hundred 

men  to  bombard  the 
fort.  La  Tour  was  with- 
out provisions,  though 
his  store  ship  from 
France  lay  in  hiding 
outside,  blocked  from 
entering  by  Charnisay's 
fleet.  Days  passed.  Re- 
sistance was  hopeless. 
On  one  side  lay  the 
impenetrable  forest  ;  on 
the  other,  Charnisay's 
fleet.  On  the  night  of 
June  1 2th,  La  Tour  and 
his  wife  slipped  from  a 
little  sally  port  in  the 
dark,  ran  along  the 
shore,  and,  evading 
spies,  succeeded  in  row- 
ing out  to  the  store  ship.  Ebb  tide  carried  them  far  from  the 
four  men-of-war  anchored  fast  in  front  of  the  abandoned  fort. 
Then  sails  out,  the  store  ship  fled  for  Boston,  where  La  Tour 
and  his  wife  appealed  for  aid. 

The  Puritans  of  Boston  had  qualms  of  conscience  about  inter- 
fering in  this  French  quarrel ;  but  they  did  not  forget  that 
Charnisay's  wreckers  had  stripped  their  merchant  ships  come  to 
grief  on  the  reefs  of  Sable  Island.  La  Tour  gave  the  Boston 
merchants  a  mortgage  on  all  his  belongings  at  St.  John,  and  in 
return  obtained  four  vessels,  fifty  mariners,  ninety-two  soldiers, 


CARDINAL   RICHELIEU 


MADAME   LA  TOUR  DEFENDS  THE   FORT  6j 

thirty-eight  cannon.  With  this  fleet  he  swooped  down  on  Fundy 
Bay  in  July.  Charnisay's  vessels  lay  before  Fort  St.  John,  where 
the  stubborn  little  garrison  still  held  out,  when  La  Tour  came 
down  on  him  like  an  enraged  eagle.  Charnisay's  fur  ships  were 
boarded,  scuttled,  and  sunk,  while  the  commander  himself  fled 
in  terror  for  Port  Royal.  All  sails  pressed,  La  Tour  pursued 
right  into  Annapolis  Basin,  wounding  seven  of  the  enemy,  kill- 
ing three,  taking  one  prisoner.  Charnisay's  one  remaining  vessel 
grounded  in  the  river.  A  fight  took  place  near  the  site  of  the 
mill  which  Poutrincourt  had  built  long  ago,  but  Charnisay  suc- 
ceeded in  gaining  the  shelter  of  Port  Royal,  where  his  cannon 
soon  compelled  La  Tour  to  fly  from  Annapolis  Basin.  Charnisay 
found  it  safer  to  pass  that  winter  in  France,  and  La  Tour  gath- 
ered in  all  the  peltry  traffic  of  the  bay. 

Early  in  1644  Charnisay  returned  and  sent  a  friar  to  secure 
the  neutrality  of  the  New  Englanders.  All  summer  negotiations 
dragged  on  between  Boston  and  Port  Royal,  La  Tour  meanwhile 
scouring  land  and  sea  unchecked,  packing  his  fort  with  peltries. 
Finally,  Charnisay  promised  to  desist  from  all  fur  trade  along 
the  coast  if  the  New  England  colonies  would  remain  neutral  ; 
and  the  colonies  promised  not  to  aid  La  Tour.  La  Tour  was 
now  outlawed  by  the  French  government,  and  Charnisay  had 
actually  induced  New  England  to  promise  not  to  convey  either 
La  Tour  or  his  wife  to  or  from  Bay  of  Fundy  in  English  boats. 

La  Tour  chanced  to  be  absent  from  his  fort  in  1645.  Like 
a  bird  of  prey  Charnisay  swooped  on  St.  John  River;  but  he 
had  not  reckoned  on  Madame  La  Tour  —  Frances  Marie 
Jacqueline.  With  the  courage  and  agility  of  a  trained  soldier, 
she  commanded  her  little  garrison  of  fifty  and  returned  the 
raider's  cannonade  with  a  fury  that  sent  Charnisay  limping  back 
to  Port  Royal  with  splintered  decks,  twenty  mangled  corpses 
jumbled  aft,  and  a  dozen  men  wounded  to  the  death  lying  in 
the  hold. 

With  all  the  power  of  France  at  his  back  Charnisay  had  been 
defeated  by  a  woman,  —  the  Huguenot  wife  of  an  outlaw!  He 
must    reduce    La  Tour  or  stand    discredited  before    the   world. 


68      CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Furious  beyond  words,  he  hastened  to  France  to  prepare  an 
overwhelming"  armament. 

But  Madame  La  Tour  was  not  idle.  She,  too,  hastened 
across  the  Atlantic  to  solicit  aid  in  London.  One  can  imagine 
how  Charnisay  gnashed  his  teeth.  Here,  at  last,  was  his  chance. 
The  Boston  vessels  were  not  to  convey  the  La  Tours  back  to 
Acadia.  Like  a  hawk  Charnisay  cruised  the  sea  for  the  out- 
coming  ship  with  its  fair  passenger ;  but  Madame  La  Tour  had 
made  a  cast-iron  agreement  with  the  master  of  the  sailing  ves- 
sel to  bring  her  direct  to  Boston.  Instead  of  this,  the  vessel 
cruised  the  St.  Lawrence,  trading  with  the  Indians,  and  so 
delayed  the  aid  coming  to  La  Tour ;  but  when  Charnisay's 
searchers  came  on  board  off  Sable  Island,  Madame  La  Tour  was 
hidden  among  the  freight  in  the  hold.  For  the  delay  she  sued 
the  sailing  master  in  Boston  and  obtained  a  judgment  of 
^2000  ;  and  when  he  failed  to  pay,  had  his  cargo  seized  and 
sold,  and  with  the  proceeds  equipped  three  vessels  to  aid  her 
outlawed  husband.  So  the  whole  of  1646  passed,  each  side 
girding  itself  for  the  final  fray. 

April,  1647,  spies  brought  word  to  Charnisay  that  La  Tour 
was  absent  from  his  fort.  Waiting  not  a  moment,  Charnisay 
hurried  ships,  soldiers,  cannon  across  the  bay.  Inside  La  Tour's 
fort  was  no  confusion.  Madame  La  Tour  had  ordered  every 
man  to  his  place.  Day  and  night  for  three  days  the  siege 
lasted,  Charnisay's  men  closing  in  on  the  palisades  so  near  they 
could  bandy  words  with  the  fighters  on  the  galleries  inside  the 
walls.  Among  La  Tour's  fighters  were  Swiss  mercenaries  — 
men  who  fight  for  the  highest  pay.  Did  Charnisay  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  day  "grease  the  fist  "  of  the  Swiss  sentry,  or  was 
it  a  case  of  a  boorish  fellow  refusing  to  fight  under  a  woman's 
command  ?  Legend  gives  both  explanations  ;  but  on  Easter 
Sunday  morning  Charnisay's  men  gained  entrance  by  scaling 
the  walls  where  the  Swiss  sentry  stood.  Madame  La  Tour  rushed 
her  men  to  an  inner  fort  loopholed  with  guns.  Afraid  of  a  final 
defeat  that  would  disgrace  him  before  all  the  world,  Charnisay 
called  up  generous  terms  if  she  would  surrender.    To  save  the 


CHARNISAY'S  TREACHERY 


69 


lives  of  the  men  Madame  La  Tour  agreed  to  honorable  surren- 
der, and  the  doors  were  opened.  In  rushed  Charnisay  !  To  his 
amazement  the  woman  had  only  a  handful  of  men.  Disgusted 
with  himself  and  boiling  over  with  revenge  for  all  these  years 
of  enmity,  Charnisay  forgot  his  promise  and  hanged  every  soul 
of  the  garrison  but  the  traitor  who  acted  as  executioner,  com- 
pelling Madame  La  Tour  to  watch  the  execution  with  a  halter 
round  her  neck  amid  the  jeers  of  the  soldiery.  Legend  says 
that  the  experience  drove  her  insane  and  caused  her  death 
within  three  weeks.  Charnisay  was  now  lord  of  all  Acadia,  with 
;£  10,000  worth  of  Ma- 
dame La  Tour's  jewelry 
transferred  to  Port 
Royal  and  all  La  Tour's 
furs  safe  in  the  ware- 
houses of  Annapolis 
Basin  ;  but  he  did  not 
long  enjoy  his  triumph. 
He  had  the  reputation 
of  treating  his  Indian 
servants  with  great 
brutality.  On  the  24th 
of  May,  1650,  an  Indian 
was  rowing  him  up  the  narrows  near  Port  Royal.  Charnisay 
could  not  swim.  Without  apparent  cause  the  boat  upset.  The 
Indian  swam  ashore.  The  commander  perished.  Legend  again 
avers  that  the  Indian  upset  the  boat  to  be  revenged  on  Char- 
nisay for  some  brutality. 

La  Tour  had  been  wandering  from  Newfoundland  to  Boston 
and  Quebec  seeking  aid,  but  a  lost  cause  has  few  friends,  and 
if  La  Tour  turned  pirate  on  Boston  boats,  he  probably  thought 
he  was  justified  in  paying  off  the  score  of  Boston's  bargain 
with  Charnisay.  Later  he  turned  trader  with  the  Indians  from 
Hudson  Bay,  and  found  friends  in  Quebec.  Word  of  his  wrongs 
reached  the  French  court.  When  Charnisay  perished,  La  Tour 
was  at  last  appointed  lieutenant  governor  of   Acadia.    Widow 


Scale:-  8  miles  tn  1  inch 


MAP  OF  ANNAPOLIS  BASIN 


JO  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Charnisay,  left  with  eight  children,  all  minors,  made  what  rep- 
aration she  could  to  La  Tour  by  giving  back  the  fort  on  the 
St.  John,  and  La  Tour,  to  wipe  out  the  bitter  enmity,  married 
the  widow  of  his  enemy  in  February  of  1653. 

But  this  was  not  the  seal  of  peace  on  his  troubled  life. 
Cromwell  was  now  ascendant  in  England,  and  Major  Sedgwick 
of  Boston,  in  1654,  with  a  powerful  fleet,  captured  Port  Royal 
and  St.  John.  Weary  of  fighting  what  seemed  to  be  destiny, 
La  Tour  became  a  British  subject,  and  with  two  other  English- 
men was  granted  the  whole  of  Acadia.  Ten  years  later  his 
English  partners  bought  out  his  rights,  and  La  Tour  died  in 
the  land  of  his  many  trials  about  1666.  A  year  later  the  Treaty 
of  Breda  restored  Acadia  to  France. 


CHAPTER  V 

FROM  1035  TO  1650 

While  Charles  de  La  Tour  and  Charnisay  scoured  the  Bay  of 
Fundy  in  border  warfare  like  buccaneers  of  the  Spanish  Main, 
what  was  Quebec  doing  ? 

The  Hundred  Associates  were  to  colonize  the  country  ;  but 
fur  trading  and  farming  never  go  together.  One  means  the  end 
of  the  other  ;  and  the  Hundred  Associates  shifted  the  obligation 
of  settling  the  country  by  granting  vast  estates  called  seigniories 
along  the  St.  Lawrence  and  leaving  to  these  new  lords  of  the 
soil  the  duty  of  bringing  out  habitants.  Later  they  deeded  over 
for  an  annual  rental  of  beaver  skins  the  entire  fur  monopoly  to 
the  Habitant  Company,  made  up  of  the  leading  people  of  New 
France.    So  ended  all  the  fine  promises  of  four  thousand  colonists. 

Years  ago  Pontgrave  had  learned  that  the  Indians  of  the  Up- 
Country  did  not  care  to  come  down  the  St.  Lawrence  farther 
than  Lake  St.  Peter's,  where  Iroquois  foe  lay  in  ambush  ;  and 
the  year  before  Champlain  died  a  double  expedition  had  set  out 
from  Quebec  in  July:  one  to  build  a  fort  north  of  Lake  St. 
Peter's  at  the  entrance  to  the  river  with  three  mouths,  —  in  other 
words,  to  found  Three  Rivers  ;  the  other,  under  Father  Brcbeuf, 
the  Jesuit,  and  Jean  Nicolet,  the  wood  runner,  to  establish  a  mis- 
sion in  the  country  of  the  Hurons  and  to  explore  the  Great  Lakes. 

In  fact,  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  Champlain's  ambi- 
tions in  laying  the  foundations  of  a  new  nation  aimed  just  as 
much  to  establish  a  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth  as  to  win  a 
new  kingdom  for  France.  Always,  in  the  minds  of  the  fathers 
of  New  France,  Church  was  to  be  first ;  State,  second.  When 
Charles  de  Montmagny,  Knight  of  Malta,  landed  in  Quebec  one 
June  morning  in  1636,  to  succeed  Champlain  as  governor  of 
New  France,  he  noticed  a  crucifix  planted  by  the  path  side  where 

71 


72  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 

viceroy  and  officers  clambered  up  the  steep  hill  to  Castle  St. 
Louis.  Instantly  Montmagny  fell  to  his  knees  before  the  cross 
in  silent  adoration,  and  his  example  was  followed  by  all  the  gay 
train  of  beplumed  officers.  The  Jesuits  regarded  the  episode  as 
a  splendid  omen  for  New  France,  and  set  their  chapel  organ 
rolling  a  Te  Dcum  of  praise,  while  Governor  and  retinue  filed 
before  the  altars  with  bared  heads. 

It  was  in  the  same  spirit  that  Montreal  was  founded. 

The  Jesuits'  letters  on  the  Canadian  missions  were  now  being 
read  in  France.  Religious  orders  were  on  tire  with  missionary 
ardor.  The  Canadian  missions  became  the  fashion  of  the  court. 
Ladies  of  noble  blood  asked  no  greater  privilege  than  to  contrib- 
ute their  fortunes  for  missions  in  Canada.  Nuns  lay  prostrate 
before  altars  praying  night  and  day  for  the  advancement  of 
the  heavenly  kingdom  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  Jesuits  had 
begun  their  college  in  Quebec.  The  very  year  that  Champlain 
had  first  come  to  the  St.  Lawrence  there  had  been  born  in  Nor- 
mandy, of  noble  parentage,  a  little  girl  who  became  a  passionate 
devotee  of  Canadian  missions.  To  divert  her  mind  from  the 
calling  of  a  nun,  her  father  had  thrown  her  into  a  whirl  of  gay- 
ety  from  which  she  emerged  married  ;  but  her  husband  died  in 
a  few  years,  and  Madame  de  la  Peltrie,  left  a  widow  at  twenty- 
two,  turned  again  heart  and  soul  to  the  scheme  of  endowing  a 
Canadian  mission.  Again  her  father  tried  to  divert  her  mind, 
threatening  to  cut  off  her  fortune  if  she  did  not  marry.  An 
engagement  to  a  young  noble,  who  was  as  keen  a  devotee  as 
herself,  quieted  her  father  and  averted  the  loss  of  her  fortune. 
On  the  death  of  her  father  the  formal  union  was  dissolved, 
and  Madame  de  la  Peltrie  proceeded  to  the  Ursuline  Convent 
of  Tours,  where  the  Jesuits  had  already  chosen  a  mother 
superior  for  the  new  institution  to  be  founded  at  Quebec  — 
Marie  of  the  Incarnation,  a  woman  of  some  fifty  years,  a  widow 
like  Madame  de  la  Peltrie,  and,  like  Madame  de  la  Peltrie,  a 
mystic  dreamer  of  celestial  visions  and  divine  communings  and 
heroic  sacrifices.    I  low  much  of  truth,  how  much  of  self-delusion, 


MYSTICS  COME  TO   CANADA 


73 


lay  in  these  dreams  of  heavenly  revelation  is  not  for  the  out- 
sider to  say.  It  is  as  impossible  for  the  practical  mind  to  pro- 
nounce judgment  on  the  mystic  as  for  the  mystic  to  pronounce 
sentence  on  the  scientist.  Both  have  their  truths,  both  have  their 
errors  ;  and  by  their 
fruits  are  they  known. 

May  4th,  1639,  Ma- 
dame de  la  Peltrie  and 
Marie  of  the  Incarna- 
tion embarked  from 
Dieppe  for  Canada.  In 
the  ship  were  also 
another  Ursuline  nun, 
three  hospital  sisters  to 
found  the  Hotel  Dieu  at 
Quebec,  Father  Vimont, 
superior  of  Quebec 
Jesuits,  and  two  other 
priests.  The  boat  was 
like  a  chapel.  Ship's 
bell  tolled  services. 
Morning  prayer  and 
evensong  were  chanted 
from  the  decks,  and  the 
pilgrims  firmly  believed 
that  their  vows  allayed  a  storm.  July  1st  they  were  among  the 
rocking  dories  of  the  Newfoundland  fishermen,  and  then  on 
the  15th  the  little  sailboat  washed  and  rolled  to  anchor  inshore 
among  the  fur  traders  under  the  heights  of  Tadoussac. 

At  sight  of  the  somber  Saguenay,  the  silver-flooded  St. 
Lawrence,  the  frowning  mountains,  the  far  purple  hills,  the  pri- 
meval forests  through  which  the  wind  rushed  with  the  sound  of 
the  sea,  the  fishing  craft  dancing  on  the  tide  like  cockle  boats, 
the  grizzled  fur  traders  bronzed  as  the  crinkled  oak  forests 
where  they  passed  their  lives,  the  tawny,  naked  savages  agape 
at  these  white-skinned  women  come  from  afar,  the  hearts  of  the 


MADAME   DE    LA    PELTRIE 
(After  a  picture  in  the  Ursuline  Convent,  Quebec) 


74  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

housed-up  nuns  swelled  with  emotions  strange  and  sweet,  — 
the  emotions  of  a  new  life  in  a  new  world.  And  when  they 
scrambled  over  the  rope  coils  aboard  a  fishing  schooner  to  go 
on  up  to  Quebec,  and  heard  the  deep-voiced  shoutings  of  the 
men,  and  witnessed  the  toilers  of  the  deep  fighting  wind  and 
wave  for  the  harvest  of  the  sea,  did  it  dawn  on  the  fair  sister- 
hood that  God  must  have  workers  out  in  the  strife  of  the  world, 
as  well  as  workers  shut  up  from  the  world  inside  convent  walls  ? 
Who  knows  ?  .  .  .  Who  knows  ?  At  Tadoussac,  that  morning, 
to  both  Madame  de  la  Peltrie  and  Marie  of  the  Incarnation  it 
must  have  seemed  as  if  their  visions  had  become  real.  And 
then  the  cannon  of  Quebec  began  to  thunder  till  the  echoes 
rolled  from  hill  to  hill  and  shook  —  as  the  mystics  thought  — 
the  very  strongholds  of  hell.  Tears  streamed  down  their  cheeks 
at  such  welcome.  The  whole  Quebec  populace  had  rallied  to 
the  water  front,  and  there  stood  Governor  Montmagny  in  velvet 
cloak  with  sword  at  belt  waving  hat  in  welcome.  Soldiers  and 
priests  cheered  till  the  ramparts  rang.  As  the  nuns  put  foot  to 
earth  once  more  they  fell  on  their  knees  and  kissed  the  soil 
of  Canada.  August  ist  was  fete  day  in  Quebec.  The  chapel 
chimes  rang  .  .  .  and  rang  again  their  gladness.  The  organ 
rolled  out  its  floods  of  soul-shattering  music,  and  deep-throated 
chant  of  priests  invoked  God's  blessing  on  the  coming  of  the 
women  to  the  mission.  So  began  the  Ursuline  Convent  of 
Quebec  and  the  Hotel  Dieu  of  the  hospital  sisters  ;  but  Mon- 
treal was  still  a  howling  wilderness  untenanted  by  man  save  in 
midsummer,  when  the  fur  traders  came  to  Champlain's  factory 
and  the  canoes  of  the  Indians  from  the  Up-Country  danced  down 
the  swirling  rapids  like  sea  birds  on  waves. 

The  letters  from  the  Jesuit  missions  touched  more  hearts 
than  those  of  the  mystic  nuns. 

In  Anjou  dwelt  a  receiver  of  taxes — Jerome  le  Royer  de  la 
Dauversiere,  a  stout,  practical,  God-fearing  man  with  a  family, 
about  as  far  removed  in  temperament  from  the  founders  of  the 
Ursulines  as  a  character  could  well  be.    Yet  he,  too,  had  mystic 


A  CITY  BUILT  OF  DREAMS 


75 


dreams  and  heard  voices  bidding  him  found  a  mission  in  the 
tenantless  wilderness  of  Montreal.  To  the  practical  man  the 
thing  seems  sheer  moon-stark  madness.  If  Dauversiere  had 
lived  in  modern  days  he  would  have  been  committed  to  an  asy- 
lum. Here  was  a  man  with  a  family,  without  a  fortune,  com- 
manded by  what  he  thought  was  the  voice  of  Heaven  to  found 
a  hospital  in  a  wilderness  where  there  were  no  people.  Also  in 
Paris  dwelt  a  young  priest,  Jean  Jacques  Olier,  who  heard  the 
self-same  voices  uttering  the  self-same  command.  These  two 
men  were  unknown  to  each  other ;  yet  when  they  met  by 
chance  in  the  picture  gallery  of  an  old  castle,  there  fell  from 
their  eyes,  as  it  were,  scales,  and  they  beheld  as  in  a  vision  each 
the  other's  soul,  and  recognized  in  each  fellow-helper  and  com- 
rade of  the  spirit.  To  all  this  the  practical  man  cries  out  "  Bosh  "  ! 
Yet  Montreal  is  no  bosh,  but  a  stately  city,  and  it  sprang  from 
the  dreams  —  "fool  dreams,"  enemies  would  call  them — of  these 
two  men,  the  Sulpician  priest  and  the  Anjou  tax  collector. 

Hour  after  hour,  arm  in  arm,  they  walked  and  talked,  the 
man  of  prayers  and  the  man  of  taxes.  People  or  no  people  at 
Montreal,  money  or  no  money,  they  decided  that  the  inner  voice 
must  be  obeyed.  A  Montreal  Society  was  formed.  Six  friends 
joined.  What  would  be  equal  to  $75,000  was  collected.  There 
were  to  be  no  profits  on  this  capital.  It  was  all  to  be  invested 
to  the  glory  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Unselfish  if  you  like, 
foolish  they  may  have  been,  but  not  hypocrites. 

First  of  all,  they  must  become  Seigneurs  of  Montreal ;  but 
the  island  of  Montreal  had  already  been  granted  by  the  Hun- 
dred Associates  to  one  Lauson.  To  render  the  title  doubly 
secure,  Dauversiere  and  Olier  obtained  deeds  to  the  island  from 
Lauson  and  from  the  Hundred  Associates. 

Forty-five  colonists,  part  soldiers,  part  devotees,  were  then 
gained  as  volunteers  ;  but  a  veritable  soldier  of  Heaven  was 
desired  as  commander.  Paul  de  Chomedey,  Sieur  de  Maison- 
neuve,  was  noted  for  his  heroism  in  war  and  zeal  in  religion. 
When  other  officers  returned  from  battle  for  wild  revels,  Maison- 
neuve   withdrew   to  play   the   flute   or  pass   hours   in   religious 


76  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

contemplation.  His  name  occurred  to  both  Dauversiere  and 
Olier  as  fittest  for  command  ;  but  to  make  doubly  sure,  they  took 
lodgings  near  him,  studied  his  disposition,  and  then  casually  told 
him  of  their  plans  and  asked  his  cooperation.  Maisonneuve  was 
in  the  prime  of  life,  on  the  way  to  high  service  in  the  army. 
His  zeal  took  fire  at  thought  of  founding  a  Kingdom  of  God  at 
Montreal ;  but  his  father  furiously  opposed  what  must  have 
seemed  a  mad  scheme.  Maisonneuve's  answer  was  the  famous 
promise  of  Christ  :  "  No  man  hath  left  house  or  brethren  or 
sister  for  my  sake  but  he  shall  receive  a  hundredfold." 

Maisonneuve  was  warned  there  would  be  no  earthly  reward 
—  no  pay  —  for  his  arduous  task  ;  but  he  answered,  "  I  devote 
my  life  and  future  ;  and  I  expect  no  recompense." 

Mademoiselle  Jeanne  Mance,  thirty-four  years  old,  who  had 
given  herself  to  good  works  from  childhood,  though  she  had  not 
yet  joined  the  cloister,  now  felt  the  call  to  labor  in  the  wilder- 
ness. Later,  in  1653,  came  Marguerite  Bourgeoys  to  the  little 
colony  beneath  the  mountain.  She  too,  like  Jeanne  Mance,  dis- 
trusted dreams  and  visions  and  mystic  communings,  cherishing 
a  religion  of  good  works  rather  than  introspection  of  the  soul. 
Dauversiere  and  Olier  remained  in  France.  Fortunately  for 
Montreal,  practical  Christians,  fighting  soldiers  of  the  cross, 
carried  the  heavenly  standard  to  the  wilderness. 

It  was  too  late  to  ascend  the  St.  Lawrence  when  the  ship 
brought  the  crusaders  to  Quebec  in  August,  1641  ;  and  difficul- 
ties harried  them  from  the  outset.  Was  Montmagny,  the  Gov- 
ernor, jealous  of  Maisonneuve  ;  or  did  he  simply  realize  the  fear- 
ful dangers  Maisonneuve's  people  would  run  going  beyond  the 
protection  of  Quebec  ?  At  all  events,  he  disapproved  this  build- 
ing of  a  second  colony  at  Montreal,  when  the  first  colony  at 
Quebec  could  barely  gain  subsistence.  He  offered  them  the 
Island  of  Orleans  in  exchange  for  the  Island  of  Montreal,  and 
warned  them  of  Iroquois  raid. 

"I  have  not  come  to  argue,"  answered  Maisonneuve,  "but 
to  act.  It  is  my  duty  to  found  a  colony  at  Montreal,  and  thither  I 
go  though  every  tree  be  an  Iroquois." 


FIRST  NIGHT  AT  MONTREAL  77 

Maisonneuve  passed  the  winter  building  boats  to  ascend  the 
St.  Lawrence  next  spring  ;  and  Madame  de  la  Peltrie,  having 
established  the  Ursulines  at  Quebec,  now  cast  in  her  lot  with 
the  Montrealers  for  two  years. 

May  8,  1642,  the  little  flotilla  set  out  from  Quebec  — a  pin- 
nace with  the  passengers,  a  barge  with  provisions,  two  long  boats 
propelled  by  oars  and  a  sweep.  Montmagny  and  Father  Vimont 
accompanied  the  crusaders  ;  and  as  the  boats  came  within  sight 
of  the  wooded  mountain  on  May  17,  hymns  of  praise  rose  from 
the  pilgrims  that  must  have  mingled  strangely  on  Indian  ears 
with  the  roar  of  the  angry  rapids.  One  can  easily  call  up  the 
scene  —  the  mountain,  misty  with  the  gathering  shadows  of  sun- 
set, misty  as  a  veiled  bride  with  the  color  and  bloom  of  spring  ; 
the  boats,  moored  for  the  night  below  St.  Helen's  Island,  where 
the  sun,  blazing  behind  the  half-foliaged  trees,  paints  a  path  of 
fire  on  the  river ;  the  white  bark  wigwams  along  shore  with  the 
red  gleam  of  camp  fire  here  and  there  through  the  forest ;  the 
wilderness  world  bathed  in  a  peace  as  of  heaven,  as  the  vesper 
hymn  floats  over  the  evening  air  !  It  is  a  scene  that  will  never 
again  be  enacted  in  the  history  of  the  world  —  dreamers  dream- 
ing greatly,  building  a  castle  of  dreams,  a  fortress  of  holiness 
in  the  very  center  of  wilderness  barbarity  and  cruelty  unspeak- 
able. The  multitudinous  voices  of  traffic  shriek  where  the  cru- 
saders' hymn  rose  that  May  night.  A  great  city  has  risen  on 
the  foundations  which  these  dreamers  laid.  Let  us  not  scoff 
too  loudly  at  their  mystic  visions  and  religious  rhapsodies ! 
Another  generation  may  scoff  at  our  too-much-worldliness,  with 
our  dreamless  grind  and  visionless  toil  and  harder  creeds  that 
reject  everything  which  cannot  be  computed  in  the  terms  of 
traffic's  dollar!  Well  for  us  if  the  fruit  of  our  creeds  remain  to 
attest  as  much  worth  as  the  deeds  of  these  crusaders  ! 

Early  next  morning  the  boats  pulled  in  ashore  where  Carrier 
had  landed  one  hundred  years  before  and  Champlain  had  built 
his  factory  thirty  years  ago.  Maisonneuve  was  first  to  spring 
on  land.    He  dropped  to  his  knees  in  prayer.    The  others  as 


78  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

they  landed  did  likewise.  Their  hymns  floated  out  on  the 
forest.  Madame  de  la  Peltrie,  Jeanne  Mance,  and  the  servant, 
Charlotte  Barre,  quickly  decorated  a  wildwood  altar  with  ever- 
greens. Then,  with  Montmagny  the  Governor,  and  Maison- 
neuve  the  soldier,  standing  on  either  side,  Madame  de  la 
Peltrie  and  Jeanne  Mance  and  Charlotte  Barre,  bowed  in  rev- 
erence, with  soldiers  and  sailors  standing  at  rest  unhooded, 
Father  Vimont  held  the  first  religious  services  at  Mont  Royal. 
"You  are  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,"  he  said,  "and  you  shall 
grow  till  your  branches  overshadow  the  earth." 

Maisonneuve  cut  the  first  tree  for  the  fort ;  and  a  hundred 
legends  might  be  told  of  the  little  colony's  pioneer  trials.  Once 
a  flood  threatened  the  existence  of  the  fort.  A  cross  was  erected 
to  stay  the  waters  and  a  vow  made  if  Heaven  would  save  the 
fort  a  cross  should  be  carried  and  placed  on  the  summit  of  the 
mountain.  The  river  abated,  and  Maisonneuve  climbed  the  steep 
mountain,  staggering  under  the  weight  of  an  enormous  cross, 
and  planted  it  at  the  highest  point.  Here,  in  the  presence  of 
all,  mass  was  held,  and  it  became  a  regular  pilgrimage  from  the 
fort  up  the  mountain  to  the  cross. 

In  1743  came  Louis  d'Ailleboust  and  his  wife,  both  zeal- 
ously bound  by  the  same  vows  as  devotees,  bringing  word  of 
more  funds  for  Ville  Marie,  as  Montreal  was  called.  Mont- 
magny's  warning  of  Iroquois  proved  all  too  true.  Within  a  year, 
in  June,  1743,  six  workmen  were  beset  in  the  fields,  only  one 
escaping.  Because  his  mission  was  to  convert  the  Indians, 
Maisonneuve  had  been  ever  reluctant  to  meet  the  Iroquois  in 
open  war,  preferring  to  retreat  within  the  fort  when  the  dog 
Pilot  and  her  litter  barked  loud  warning  that  Indians  were  hid- 
ing in  the  woods.  Any  one  who  knows  the  Indian  character 
will  realize  how  clemency  would  be  mistaken  for  cowardice. 
Even  Maisonneuve's  soldiers  began  to  doubt  him. 

"My  lord,  my  lord,"  they  urged,  "are  the  enemy  never  to 
get  a  sight  of  you  ?   Are  we  never  to  face  the  foe  ?  " 

Maisonneuve's  answer  was  in  March,  1644,  when  ambushed 
hostiles  were  detected  stealing  on  the  fort. 


MAISONNEUVE  FIGHTS  RAIDERS  79 

"  Follow  me,"  he  ordered  thirty  men,  leaving  D'Ailleboust 
in  command  of  the  fort. 

Near  the  place  now  known  as  Place  d'Armes  the  little  band 
was  greeted  by  the  eldritch  scream  of  eighty  painted  Iro- 
quois. Shots  fell  thick  and  fast.  The  Iroquois  clashed  to  res- 
cue their  wounded,  and  a  young  chief,  recognizing  Maisonneuve 
as  the  leader  of  the  white  men,  made  a  rush  for  the  honor  of 
capturing  the  French  commander  alive.  Maisonneuve  had  put 
himself  between  his  retreating  men  and  the  advancing  warriors. 
Firing,  he  would  retreat  a  pace,  then  fire  again,  keeping  his  face 
to  the  foe.  His  men  succeeded  in  rushing  up  the  hillock,  then 
made  for  the  gates  in  a  wild  stampede.  Maisonneuve  was  back- 
ing away,  a  pistol  in  each  hand.  The  Iroquois  circled  from  tree 
to  tree,  near  and  nearer,  and  like  a  wildwood  creature  of  prey 
was  watching  his  chance  to  spring,  when  the  Frenchman  fired. 
The  pistol  missed.  Dodging,  the  Indian  leaped.  Maisonneuve 
discharged  the  other  pistol.  The  Iroquois  fell  dead,  and  while 
warriors  rescued  the  body,  Maisonneuve  gained  the  fort  gates. 
This  was  only  one  of  countless  frays  when  the  dog  Pilot  with 
her  puppies  sounded  the  alarm  of  prowlers  in  the  woods. 

What  were  the  letters,  what  the  adventures  described  by 
the  Jesuits,  that  aroused  such  zeal  and  inspired  such  heroism  ? 
It  would  require  many  volumes  to  record  the  adventures  of  the 
Jesuits  in  Canada,  and  a  long  list  to  include  all  their  heroes 
martyred  for  the  faith.  Only  a  few  of  the  most  prominent 
episodes  in  the  Jesuits'  adventures  can  be  given  here. 

When  Pierre  le  Jeune  reached  Quebec  after  the  victory  of 
the  Kirke  brothers,  he  found  only  the  charred  remains  of  a  mis- 
sion on  the  old  site  of  Cartier's  winter  quarters  down  on  the 
St.  Charles.  Of  houses,  only  the  gray-stone  cottage  of  Madame 
Hebert  had  been  left  standing.  Here  Le  Jeune  was  welcomed 
and  housed  till  the  little  mission  could  be  rebuilt.  At  first  it 
consisted  <>f  only  mud-plastered  log  cabins,  thatch-roofed,  divided 
into  tour  rooms,  with  garret  and  cellar.  One  room  decorated 
with  saints'  images  and  pictures  served  as  chapel ;   another,  as 


8o 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


kitchen;  a  third,  as  lodgings;  the  fourth,  as  refectory.  In  this 
humble  abode  six  Jesuit  priests  and  two  lay  brothers  passed 
the  winter  after  the  war.  The  roof  leaked  like  a  sieve.  The 
snow  piled  high  almost  as  the  top  of  the  door.  Le  Jeune's  first 
care  was  to  obtain  pupils.  These  consisted  of  an  Indian  boy 
and  a  negro  lad  left  by  the  English.  Meals  of  porridge  given 
free  attracted  more  Indian  pupils  ;  but  Le  Jeune's  greatest  diffi- 
culty was  to  learn  the  Indian  language.    Hearing  that  a  renegade 

Indian  named  Pierre, 
who  had  served  the 
French  as  interpreter, 
lodged  with  some  Al- 
gonquins  camped  below 
Cape  Diamond,  Le 
Jeune  tramped  up  the 
river  bank,  along  what 
is  now  the  Lower  Road, 
where  he  found  the  In- 
dians wigwamming,  and 
by  the  bribe  of  free  food 
obtained  Pierre.  Pierre 
was  at  best  a  tricky 
scoundrel,  who  con- 
sidered it  a  joke  to  give 
Le  Jeune  the  wrong 
word  for  some  religious 
precept,  gorged  himself  on  the  missionaries'  food,  stole  their 
communion  wine,  and  ran  off  at  Lent  to  escape  fasting. 

When  Champlain  returned  to  receive  Quebec  back  from  the 
English,  more  priests  joined  the  Jesuits'  mission.  Among  them 
was  the  lion-hearted  giant,  Brebeuf. 


PIERRE    LE   JEUNE 


If  Champlain's  bush  lopers  could  join  bands  of  wandering 
Indians  for  the  extension  of  French  dominion,  surely  the  Jesuits 
could  dare  as  perilous  a  life  "for  the  greater  glory  of  God,"  — 
as  their  vows  declared. 


LE  JEUNE  JOINS  THE  HUNTERS  8  I 

Le  Jeune  joined  a  band  of  wandering  Montaignais,  Pierre,  the 
rascal,  tapping  the  keg  of  sacramental  wine  the  first  night  out, 
and  turning  the  whole  camp  into  a  drunken  bedlam,  till  his  own 
brother  sobered  him  with  a  kettle  of  hot  water  flung  full  in  the 
face.  That  night  the  priest  slept  apart  from  the  camp  in  the 
woods.  By  the  time  the  hunters  reached  the  forest  borderland 
between  Quebec  and  New  Brunswick,  their  number  had  in- 
creased to  forty-five.  By  Christmas  time  game  is  usually  dor- 
mant, still  living  on  the  stores  of  the  fall  and  not  yet  driven 
afield  by  spring  hunger.  In  camp  was  no  food.  The  hunters 
halted  the  march,  and  came  in  Christmas  Eve  of  1633  with  not 
so  much  as  a  pound  of  flesh  for  nearly  fifty  people.  From  the 
first  the  Indian  medicine  man  had  heaped  ridicule  on  the  white 
priest,  and  Pierre  had  refused  to  interpret  as  much  as  a  single 
prayer  ;  but  now  the  whole  camp  was  starving.  Pierre  happened 
to  tell  the  other  Indians  that  Christmas  was  the  day  on  which  the 
white  man's  God  had  come  to  earth.  In  vain  the  medicine  man 
had  pounded  his  tom-tom  and  shouted  at  the  Indian  gods  from  the 
top  of  the  wigwams  and  offered  sacrifice  of  animals  to  be  slain. 
No  game  had  come  as  the  result  of  the  medicine  man's  invocation. 

Le  Jeune  gathered  the  people  about  him  and  through  Pierre, 
the  interpreter,  bade  them  try  the  white  man's  God.  In  the 
largest  of  the  wigwams  a  little  altar  was  fitted  up.  Then  the 
Indians  repeated  this  prayer  after  Le  Jeune  : 

Jesus,  Son  of  the  Almighty  .  .  .  who  died  for  us  .  .  .  who  promised 
that  if  we  ask  anything  in  Thy  name,  Thou  wilt  do  it  —  I  pray  Thee 
with  all  my  heart,  give  food  to  these  people  .  .  .  this  people  promises 
Thee  faithfully  they  will  trust  Thee  entirely  and  obey  Thee  with  all  their 
heart!  My  Lord,  hear  my  prayer  !  I  present  Thee  my  life  for  this  people, 
most  willing  to  die  that  they  may  live  and  know  Thee. 

"Take  that  back,"  grunted  the  chief.  "  We  love  you!  We 
don't  want  you  to  die." 

"  I  only  want  to  show  that  I  am  your  friend,"  answered 
the  priest. 

Le  Jeune  then  commanded  them  to  go  forth  to  the  hunt,  full 
of  faith  that  God  would  gnve  them  food. 


82  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

But  alas  for  the  poor  father's  hopes  and  the  childlike  Indian 
vow!  True,  they  found  abundance  of  food, — a  beaver  dam  full 
of  beaver,  a  moose,  a  porcupine  taken  by  the  Indian  medi- 
cine man.  Father  Le  Jeune,  with  radiant  face,  met  the  hunters 
returning  laden  with  game. 

"  We  must  thank  your  God  for  this,"  said  the  Indian  chief, 
throwing  down  his  load. 

"  Bah,"  says  Pierre,  "you  'd  have  found  it  anyway." 

"  This  is  not  the  time  to  talk,"  sneered  the  medicine  man. 
"  Let  the  hungry  people  eat." 

And  by  the  time  the  Indians  had  gorged  themselves  with  ample 
measure  for  their  long  fast,  they  were  torpid  with  sleep.  The  sad 
priest  was  fain  to  wander  out  under  the  stars.  There,  in  the  snow- 
padded  silences  of  the  white-limned  forest,  far  from  the  joyous 
peal  of  Christmas  bells,  he  knelt  alone  and  worshiped  God. 

For  five  months  he  wandered  with  the  Montaignais,  and 
now  in  April  the  hunters  turned  toward  Quebec  with  their  furs. 
At  three  in  the  morning  Le  Jeune  knocked  on  the  door  of  the 
mission  house  at  Quebec,  and  was  welcomed  home  by  the  priests. 
The  pilgrimage  had  taught  him  what  the  Jesuits  have  always 
held  —  the  way  to  power  with  a  people  is  through  the  education 
of  the  children.  "  Give  me  a  child  for  the  first  seven  years  of 
its  life,"  said  a  famous  educator,  "  and  I  care  not  what  you  do 
with  him  the  rest  of  his  years."  Missions  and  schools  must  be 
established  among  the  tribes  of  Hurons  and  Iroquois. 

Consequently,  when  Champlain  sent  his  soldiers  in  1634  to 
build  a  fort  at  Three  Rivers,  they  were  accompanied  by  three 
Jesuits,  chief  of  whom  was  Jean  de  Brebeuf,  lion-hearted, 
bound  for  the  land  of  the  Hurons.  The  chapel  bells  of  Quebec 
rang  and  rang  again  in  honor  of  the  new  Jesuit  mission  — 
morning,  noon,  and  night  they  chimed  in  airy  music,  calling 
men's  thoughts  to  God,  just  as  you  may  hear  the  chimes  to-day  ; 
and  the  ramparts  below  Quebec  thundered  and  reechoed  with 
salvos  of  cannon  when  the  missionaries  set  out  for  Three 
Rivers. 


BREBEUF  GOES  TO  TAKE   HURON  83 

At  Three  Rivers  waited  the  Indians  of  the  Up-Country.  The 
Jesuits  embarked  with  them  for  the  land  of  the  Hurons. 
The  priests  traveled  barefoot  to  avoid  injuring  the  frail  bark 
of  the  canoes.  Barely  had  farewell  cheers  faded  on  the  river, 
when  the  canoes  spread  apart.  With  pieces  of  buckskin  hoisted 
on  fishing  rods  for  sail,  and  a  flipping  of  paddles  as  naked, 
bronzed  arms  set  the  pace,  the  voyage  had  begun.  Heroism  is 
easy  with  chapel  bells  ringing  ;  it  is  another  matter,  barefoot 
and  with  sleeves  rolled  up. 

It  was  the  same  trail  that  Champlain  had  followed  up  the 
Ottawa.  Only  Champlain  was  assured  of  good  treatment,  for 
he  had  promised  to  fight  in  the  Indian  wars  ;  but  the  Jesuits 
were  dependent  on  the  caprice  of  their  conductors.  Any  one, 
who,  from  experience  in  the  wilds,  has  learned  how  the  term 
"tenderfoot"  came  to  be  applied,  will  realize  the  hardships 
endured  —  and  endured  without  self-pity- — by  these  scholarly 
men  of  immured  life.  The  rocks  of  the  portage  cut  their  naked 
feet.  The  Indians  refused  to  carry  their  packs  overland  and 
flung  bundles  of  clothing  and  food  into  the  water.  In  fair 
weather  the  voyageurs  slept  on  the  sand  under  the  overturned 
canoes  ;  in  rain  a  wigwam  was  raised,  and  into  the  close  con- 
fines of  this  tent  crowded  men,  women,  and  children,  for  the 
most  part  naked,  and  with  less  idea  of  decency  than  a  domestic 
dog.  Each  night,  as  the  boats  were  beached,  the  priests  wan- 
dered off  into  the  woods  to  hold  their  prayers  in  privacy.  Soon 
the  canoes  were  so  far  apart  the  different  boats  did  not  camp 
together,  and  the  white  men  were  scattered  alone  among  the 
savages.  Robberies  increased  till,  when  Brebeuf  reached  Georgian 
Bay,  thirty  clays  from  leaving  Three  Rivers,  he  had  little  left  but 
the  bundles  he  had  carried  for  himself. 

Brebeuf  had  been  to  the  Huron  country  before  with  Etienne 
Brule,  Champlain's  pathfinder ;  but  of  the  first  mission  no 
record  exists.  Brebeuf  found  that  Brule  had  been  murdered  near 
the  modern  Penetang  ;  and  the  Indians  had  scarcely  brought  the 
priest's  canoe  ashore,  when  they  bolted  through  the  woods, 
leaving  him  to  follow  as  best  he  could. 


84  CANADA  :   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Take  a  map  of  modern  Ontario.  Draw  a  circle  round  Georgian 
Bay,  running  from  Muskoka  through  Lake  Simcoe  and  up  into 
Manitoulin  Island.  Here,  on  the  very  stamping  ground  of  the 
summer  tourist,  was  the  scene  of  the  Jesuits'  Huron  mission. 

When  Brebeuf's  tall  frame  emerged  from  the  woods,  the 
whole  village  of  Ihonateria  dashed  out  to  welcome  him,  shouting, 
"  He  has  come  !  He  has  come  again  !  Behold,  the  Black  Robe 
has  come  again  !  "    Young  braves  willingly  ran  back  through  the 


GEORGIAN  BAY 

forest  for  the  baggage,  which  the  voyageurs  had  thrown  aside  ; 
and  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  as  the  messengers  came 
through  the  moonlit  forest,  Brebeuf  took  up  his  abode  in  the 
house  of  the  leading  chief.  Later  came  Fathers  Davost  and 
Daniel.  By  October  the  Indians  had  built  the  missionaries  their 
wigwam,  a  bark-covered  house  of  logs,  thirty-six  feet  long,  divided 
into  three  rooms,  reception  room,  living  quarters,  church.  In 
the  entrance  hall  assembled  the  Indians,  squatting  on  the  floor, 
gazing  in  astonishment  at  the  religious  pictures  on  the  wall,  and, 
above  all,  at  the  clock. 


LIFE  AT  THE  HURON   MISSION  85 

"  What  does  he  say  ?  "  they  would  ask,  listening  solemnly  to 
the  ticking. 

"  He  says  '  Hang  on  the  kettle,'"  Brebeuf  would  answer  as 
the  clock  struck  twelve,  and  the  whole  conclave  would  be  given 
a  simple  meal  of  corn  porridge  ;  but  at  four  the  clock  sang  a 
different  song. 

"  It  says  '  Get  up  and  go  home,'  "  Brebeuf  would  explain,  and 
the  Indians  would  file  out,  knowing  well  that  the  Black  Robes 
were  to  engage  in  prayer. 

No  holiday  in  the  wildwoods  was  the  Jesuit  mission.  Chapel 
bell  called  to  service  at  four  in  the  morning.  Eight  was  the 
breakfast  hour.  The  morning  was  passed  teaching,  preaching, 
visiting.  At  two  o'clock  was  dinner,  when  a  chapter  of  the  Bible 
was  read.  After  four  the  Indians  were  dismissed,  and  the  mis- 
sionaries met  to  compare  notes  and  plan  the  next  day's  campaign. 

By  1645,  fiye  mission  houses  had  been  established,  with  Ste. 
Marie  on  the  Wye,  east  of  Midland,  as  the  central  house.  Near 
Lake  Simcoe  were  two  missions,  —  St.  Jean  Ba'tiste  and  St. 
Joseph  ;  near  Penetang,  St.  Louis,  and  St.  Ignace.  Westward  of 
Ste.  Marie  on  the  Wye  were  half  a  dozen  irregular  missions 
among  the  Tobacco  Indians.  Each  of  the  five  regular  missions 
boasted  palisaded  inclosures,  a  chapel  of  log  slabs  with  bell  and 
spire,  though  the  latter  might  be  only  a  high  wooden  cross. 
At  Ste.  Marie,  the  central  station,  were  lodgings  for  sixty  people, 
a  hospital,  kitchen  garden,  with  cattle,  pigs,  and  poultry.  At 
various  times  soldiers  had  been  sent  up  by  the  Quebec  gov- 
ernors, till  some  thirty  or  forty  were  housed  at  Ste.  Marie.  In 
all  were  eighteen  priests,  four  lay  brothers,  seven  white  serv- 
ants, and  twenty-three  volunteers,  unpaid  helpers  —  donnes, 
they  were  called,  young  men  ardently  religious,  learning  woodlore 
and  the  Indian  language  among  the  Jesuits,  as  well  as  exploring 
whenever  it  was  possible  for  them  to  accompany  the  Indians. 
Among  the  volunteers  was  one  Chouart  Groseillers,  who,  if  he 
did  not  accompany  Father  Jogues  on  a  preaching  tour  to  the 
tribes  of  Lake  Superior,  had  at  least  gone  as  far  as  the  Sault 
and  learned  of  the  vast  unexplored  world  beyond  Lake  Superior. 


86  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OE  THE   NORTH 

Food,  as  always,  played  a  large  part  in  winning  the  soul  of 
the  redskin.  On  church  fete  days  as  many  as  three  thousand 
people  were  fed  and  lodged  at  Ste.  Marie.  That  the  priests 
suffered  many  trials  among  the  unreasonable  savages  need 
not  be  told.  When  it  rained  too  heavily  they  were  accused  of 
ruining  the  crops  by  praying  for  too  much  rain  ;  when  there 
was  drouth  they  were  blamed  for  not  arranging  this  matter 
with  their  God  ;  and  when  the  scourge  of  smallpox  raged  through 
the  Huron  villages,  devastating  the  wigwams  so  that  the  timber 
wolves  wandered  unmolested  among  the  dead,  it  was  easy  for 
the  humpback  sorcerer  to  ascribe  the  pestilence  also  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Black  Robes.  Once  their  houses  were  set  on  fire. 
Again  and  again  their  lives  were  threatened.  Often  after  tramp- 
ing twenty  miles  through  the  sleet-soaked,  snow-drifted  spring 
forests,  arriving  at  an  Indian  village  foredone  and  exhausted,  the 
Jesuit  was  met  with  no  better  welcome  than  a  wigwam  flap  closed 
against  his  entrance,  or  a  rabble  of  impish  children  hooting  and 
jeering  him  as  he  sought  shelter  from  house  to  house. 

But  an  influence  was  at  work  on  the  borders  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence that  yearly  rendered  the  Hurons  more  tractable.  From 
raiding  the  settlements  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Iroquois  were 
sweeping  in  a  scourge  more  deadly  than  smallpox  up  the  Ottawa 
to  the  very  forests  of  Georgian  Bay.  The  Hurons  no  longer 
dared  to  go  down  to  Quebec  in  swarming  canoes.  Only  a  few 
picked  warriors — perhaps  two  hundred  and  fifty  —  would  ven- 
ture so  near  the  Iroquois  fighting  ground. 

One  winter  night,  as  the  priests  sat  round  their  hearth  fire 
watching  the  mournful  shadows  cast  by  the  blazing  logs  on  the 
rude  walls,  Brebeuf,  the  soldier,  lion-hearted,  the  fearless,  told 
in  a  low,  dreamy  voice  of  a  vision  that  had  come,  — the  vision 
of  a  huge  fiery  cross  rising  slowly  out  of  the  forest  and  moving 
across  the  face  of  the  sky  towards  the  Huron  country.  It 
seemed  to  come  from  the  land  of  the  Iroquois.  Was  the  priest's 
vision  a  dream,  or  his  own  intuition  deeper  than  reason,  assum- 
ing dire  form,  portending  a  universal  fear  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  I 
can  but  repeat  the  story  as  it  is  told  in  their  annals. 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  THE  IROQUOIS  87 

"  How  large  was  the  cross?"  asked  the  other  priests.  Bre- 
beuf  gazes  long  in  the  fire. 

"  Large  enough  to  crucify  us  all,"  he  answers. 

And,  as  he  had  dreamed,  fell  the  blow. 

St.  Joseph,  of  the  Lake  Simcoe  region,  was  situated  a  day's 
travel  from  the  main  fortified  mission  of  Ste.  Maiie.  Round 
it  were  some  two  thousand  Hurons  to  whom  Father  Daniel 
ministered.  Father  Daniel  was  just  closing  the  morning  services 
on  July  the  4th,  1648.  His  tawny  people  were  on  their  knees 
repeating  the  responses  of  the  service,  when  from  the  forest, 
humming  with  insect  and  bird  life,  arose  a  sound  that  was 
neither  wind  nor  running  water  —  confused,  increasing,  nearing  ! 
Then  a  shriek  broke  within  the  fort  palisades,  —  "The  enemy! 
the  Iroquois  !  "  and  the  courtyard  was  in  an  uproar  indescribable. 
Painted  redskins,  naked  but  for  the  breech  clout,  were  dashing 
across  the  cornfields  to  scale  the  palisades  or  force  the  hastily 
slammed  gates.  Father  Daniel  rushed  from  church  to  wigwams 
rallying  the  Huron  warriors,  while  the  women  and  children,  the 
aged  and  the  feeble,  ran  a  terrified  rabble  to  the  shelter  of 
the  chapel.  Before  the  Hurons  could  man  the  walls,  Iroquois 
hatchets  had  hacked  holes  of  entrance  in  the  palisades.  The 
fort  was  rushed  by  a  bloodthirsty  horde  making  the  air  hideous 
with  fiendish  screams. 

"  Fly  !  Save  yourselves  !  "  shouted  the  priest.  "  I  stay  here  ! 
We  shall  this  day  meet  in  Heaven  ! 

In  the  volley  and  counter  volley  of  ball  and  arrow,  Father 
Daniel  reeled  on  his  face,  shot  in  the  heart.  In  a  trice  his  body 
was  cut  to  pieces,  and  the  Iroquios  were  bathing  their  hands  in 
his  warm  lifeblood.  A  moment  later  the  village  was  in  roaring 
flames,  and  on  the  burning  pile  were  flung  the  fragments  of 
the  priest's  body.  The  victors  set  out  on  the  homeward  tramp 
with  a  line  of  more  than  six  hundred  prisoners,  the  majority, 
women  and  children,  to  be  brained  if  their  strength  failed  on 
the  march,  to  be  tortured  in  the  Iroquois  towns  if  they  survived 
the  abuse  on  the  way. 


88  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE   OF    THE  NORTH 

Next  westward  from  the  Lake  Simcoe  missions  were  St. 
Ignace  with  four  hundred  people  and  St.  Louis  with  seven 
hundred,  near  the  modern  Penetang  and  within  short  distance 
of  the  Jesuits'  strong  headquarters  on  the  River  Wye.  At 
these  two  missions  labored  Brebeuf,  the  giant,  and  a  fragile 
priest  named  Lalemant. 

Encouraged  by  the  total  destruction  of  St.  Joseph,  the  Iroquois 
that  very  fall  took  the  warpath  with  more  than  one  thousand 
braves.  Ascending  the  Ottawa  leisurely,  they  had  passed  the 
winter  hunting  and  cutting  off  any  stray  wanderers  found  in 
the  forest. 

The  Hurons  knew  the  doom  that  was  slowly  approaching. 
Yet  they  remained  passive,  stunned,  terrified  by  the  blow  at  St. 
Joseph.  It  was  spring  of  1649  before  the  warriors  reached 
Georgian  Bay.  March  winds  had  cleared  the  trail  of  snowdrifts, 
but  the  forests  were  still  leafless.  St.  Ignace  mission  lay  be- 
tween Lake  Simcoe  and  St.  Louis.  Approaching  it  one  windy 
March  night,  the  Iroquois  had  cut  holes  through  the  palisades 
before  dawn  and  burst  inside  the  walls  with  the  yells  and  gyra- 
tions of  some  hideous  hell  dance.  Here  a  warrior  simulated  the 
howl  of  the  wolf.  There  another  approached  in  the  crouching 
leaps  of  a  panther,  all  the  while  uttering  the  yelps  and  screams 
of  a  beast  of  prey  lashed  to  fury.  The  poor  Hurons  were  easy 
victims.  Nearly  all  their  braves  happened  to  be  absent  hunting, 
and  the  four  hundred  women  and  children,  rushing  from  the  long 
houses  half  dazed  with  sleep,  fell  without  realizing  their  fate,  or 
found  themselves  herded  in  the  chapel  like  cattle  at  the  shambles, 
Iroquois  guards  at  every  window  and  door. 

Luckily  three  Hurons  escaped  over  the  palisades  and  rushed 
breathless  through  the  forest  to  forewarn  Brebeuf  and  Lale- 
mant cooped  up  in  St.  Louis.  The  Iroquois  came  on  behind 
like  a  wolf  pack. 

"  Escape  !  Escape  !  Run  to  the  woods,  Black  Robes  !  There 
is  yet  time,"  the  Indian  converts  urged  Brebeuf ;  but  the  lion- 
hearted  stood  steadfast,  though  Lalemant,  new  to  scenes  of 
carnage,  turned  white  and  trembled  in  spite  of  his  resolution. 


THE   FIGHT  AT  ST.  LOUIS 


89 


"  Who  would  protect  the  women  if  the  men  fled  like  deer  to 
the  woods?"  demanded  Brebeuf,  and  the  tigerish  yells  of  the 
on-rushing  horde  answered  the  question. 

Before  day  dawn  had  tipped  the  branches  of  the  leafless  trees 
with  shafted  sunlight,  the  enemy  were  hacking  furiously  at  the 
palisades.  Trapped  and  cornered,  the  most  timid  of  animals 
will  fight.  With  such  fury,  reckless  from  desperation,  cherish- 
ing no  hope,  the  Hurons 
now  fought,  but  they  were 
handicapped  by  lack  of 
guns  and  balls.  Thirty 
Iroquois  had  been  slain, 
a  hundred  wounded,  and 
the  assailants  drew  off  for 
breath.  It  was  only  the 
lull  between  two  thunder- 
claps. A  moment  later 
they  were  on  St.  Louis' 
walls  and  had  hacked 
through  a  dozen  places. 
At  these  spots  the  fiercest 
fighting  occurred,  and 
those  Iroquois  who  had 
not  already  bathed  their 
faces  in  the  gore  of  vic- 
tims at  St.  Ignace  were  brebeuf 
soon  enough  dyed  in  their 

own  blood.  Here,  there,  everywhere,  were  Brebeuf  and  Lale- 
mant,  fighting,  administering  last  rites,  exhorting  the  Hurons 
to  perish  valiantly.  Then  the  rolling  clouds  of  flame  and  smoke 
told  the  Hurons  that  their  village  was  on  fire.  Some  dashed 
back  to  die  inside  the  burning  wigwams.  Others  fought  des- 
perately to  escape  through  the  broken  walls.  A  lew,  in  the 
confusion  and  smoke,  succeeded  in  reaching  the  woods,  whence 
they  ran  to  warn  Ste.  Marie  on  the  Wye.  Brebeuf  and  Lale- 
mant  had  been   knocked  down,  stripped,  bound,  and  were  now 


9o  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

half  driven,  half  dragged,  with  the  other  captives  to  be  tortured 
at  Ignace.    Not  a  sign  of  fear  did  either  priest  betray. 

One  would  fain  pass  over  the  next  pages  of  the  Jesuit  records. 
It  is  inconceivable  how  human  nature,  even  savage  nature,  so 
often  stoops  beneath  the  most  repellent  cruelties  of  the  brute 
world.  It  is  inconceivable  unless  one  acknowledge  an  influence 
fiendish  ;  but  let  us  not  judge  the  Indians  too  harshly.  When 
the  Iroquois  warriors  were  torturing  the  Hurons  and  their  mis- 
sionaries, the  populace  of  civilized  European  cities  was  outdoing 
the  savages  on  victims  whose  sins  were  political. 

While  the  Jesuits  of  Ste.  Marie  were  praying  all  day  and 
night  before  the  lighted  altar  for  heavenly  intervention  to  res- 
cue Brebeuf  and  Lalemant,  the  two  captured  priests  stood 
bound  to  the  torture  stakes,  the  gapingstock  of  a  thousand 
fiends.  When  the  Iroquois  singed  Brebeuf  from  head  to  foot 
with  burning  birch  bark,  he  threatened  them  in  tones  of  thun- 
der with  everlasting  damnation  for  persecuting  the  servants  of 
God.  The  Iroquois  shrieked  with  laughter.  Such  spirit  in  a 
man  was  to  their  liking.  Then,  to  stop  his  voice,  they  cut  away 
his  lips  and  rammed  a  red-hot  iron  into  his  mouth.  Not  once 
did  the  giant  priest  flinch  or  writhe  at  the  torture  stake.  Then 
they  brought  out  Lalemant,  that  Brebeuf  might  suffer  the 
agony  of  seeing  a  weaker  spirit  flinch.  Poor  Lalemant  fell  at 
his  superior's  feet,  sobbing  out  a  verse  of  Scripture.  Then  they 
wreathed  Lalemant  in  oiled  bark  and  set  fire  to  it. 

"  We  baptize  you,"  they  yelled,  throwing  hot  water  on  the 
dying  man.  Then  they  railed  out  blasphemies,  obscenities  un- 
speakable, against  the  Jesuits'  religion.  Brebeuf  had  not  winced, 
but  his  frame  was  relaxing.  He  sank  to  his  knees,  a  dying  man. 
With  the  yells  of  devils  jealous  of  losing  their  prey,  they  ripped 
off  his  scalp  while  he  was  still  alive,  tore  his  heart  from  his 
breast,  and  drank  the  warm  lifeblood  of  the  priest.  Brebeui 
died  at  four  in  the  afternoon.  Strange  to  relate,  Lalemant,  of 
the  weaker  body,  survived  the  tortures  till  daybreak,  when, 
weary  of  the  sport,  the  Indians  desisted  from  their  mad  night 
orgies  and  put  an  end  to  his  sufferings  by  braining  him. 


RAGUENEAU'S  CONVERTS  RESIST 


91 


Over  at  Ste.  Marie,  Ragueneau  and  the  other  priests  mo- 
mentarily awaited  the  attack ;  but  at  Ste.  Marie  were  forty 
French  soldiers  and  ample  supply  of  muskets.  The  Iroquois 
was  bravest  as  the  wolf  is  bravest  —  when  attacking  a  lamb. 
Three  hundred  Hurons  lay  in  ambush  along  the  forest  trail. 
These  ran  from  the  Iroquois  like  sheep;  but  when  three  hun- 
dred more  sallied  from  the  fort,  led  by  the  French,  it  was  the  Iro- 
quois' turn  to  run,  and  they  fled  back  behind  the  palisades  of  St. 
Louis.    The  Hurons  followed,  entered  by  the  selfsame  breaches 


REMNANTS  OF   WALLS   OF   FORT  ST.  MARY   OX   CHRISTIAN    ISLAND 
IN    1S91 


the  Iroquois  had  made,  and  drove  the  invaders  out.  More  Iro- 
quois rushed  from  Ignace  to  the  rescue.  A  hundred  Iroquois 
fell  in  the  day's  fight,  and  when  they  finally  recaptured  St.  Louis, 
only  twenty  Hurons  remained  of  the  three  hundred.  The  vic- 
tory had  been  bought  at  too  great  cost.  Tying  their  prisoners 
to  stakes  at  St.  Ignace,  they  heaped  the  courtyard  with  inflam- 
mable wood,  set  fire  to  all,  and  retreated,  taking  only  enough 
prisoners  to  earn'  their  plunder. 

Ste.  Marie  for  the  time  was  safe.  The  invaders  had  gone  ; 
but  the  blow  had  crushed  forever  the  prowess  of  the  Huron 
nation.    The  remaining  towns  had  thought  for  nothing  but  flight. 


92 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OE  THE   NORTH 


Town  after  town  was  forsaken  and  burned  in  the  summer  of 
1649,  tne  corn  harvest  left  standing  in  the  fields,  while  the 
panic-stricken  people  put  out  in  their  canoes  to  take  refuge  on 
the  islands  of  Georgian  Bay.  Ste.  Marie  on  the  Wye  alone  re- 
mained, and  the  reason  for  its  existence  was  vanishing  like 
winter  snow  before  summer  sun,  for  its  people  fled  .  .  .  fled 
.  .  .  fled  .  .  .  daily  fled  to  the  pink  granite  islands  of  the  lake. 
The  Hurons  begged  the  Jesuits  to  accompany  them,  and  there 
was  nothing  else  for  Ragueneau  to  do.    Ste.  Marie  was  stripped, 


.MAP  OF  THE  GREAT  LAKES 
Showing  the  territory  of  the  Jesuit  Huron  missions 


the  stock  slain  for  food.  Then  the  buildings  were  set  on  fire. 
June  14,  just  as  the  sunset  bathed  water  and  sky  in  seas  of  gold, 
the  priest  led  his  homeless  people  down  to  the  lake  as  Moses  of 
old  led  the  children  of  Israel.  Oars  and  sweeps,  Georgian  Bay 
calm  as  glass,  they  rafted  slowly  out  to  the  Christian  Islands,  — 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity, — which  tourists  can  still  see  from 
passing  steamers,  a  long  wooded  line  beyond  the  white  water- 
fret  of  the  wind-swept  reefs.  The  island  known  on  the  map  as 
Charity,  or  St.  Joseph,  was  heavily  wooded.  Here  the  refugees 
found  their  haven,  and  the  French  soldiers  cleared  the  ground 


FLIGHT  OF  THE  HURONS  93 

for  a  stone  fort  of  walled  masonry,  —  the  islands  offering  little 
else  than  stone  and  timber,  though  the  fishing  has  not  failed  to 
this  day. 

By  autumn  the  walled  fort  was  complete,  but  some  eight 
thousand  refugees  had  gathered  to  the  island.  Such  numbers 
could  not  subsist  on  Georgian  Bay  in  summer.  In  winter  their 
presence  meant  starvation,  and  before  the  spring  of  1650  half 
had  perished.  Of  the  survivors,  many  had  fed  on  the  bodies 
of  the  dead.  No  help  had  come  from  Quebec  for  almost  three 
years.  The  clothing  of  the  priests  had  long  since  worn  to  shreds. 
Ragueneau  and  his  helpers  were  now  dressed  in  skins  like  the 
Indians,  and  reduced  to  a  diet  of  nuts  and  smoked  fish. 

With  warm  weather  came  sickness.  And  also  came  bands  of 
raiding  Iroquois  striking  terror  to  the  Tobacco  Indians.  Among 
them,  too,  perished  Jesuit  priests,  martyrs  to  the  faith.  Did 
some  of  the  Hurons  venture  from  the  Christian  Islands  across 
to  the  mainland  to  hunt,  they  were  beset  by  scalping  parties 
and  came  back  to  the  fort  with  tales  that  crazed  Ragueneau's 
Indians  with  terror.  The  Hurons  decided  to  abandon  Geor- 
gian Bay.  Some  scattered  to  Lake  Superior,  to  Green  Bay,  to 
Detroit.  Others  found  refuge  on  Manitoulin  Island.  A  rem- 
nant of  a  few  hundreds  followed  Ragueneau  and  the  French 
down  the  Ottawa  to  take  shelter  at  Quebec.  Their  descend- 
ants may  be  found  to  this  day  at  the  mission  of  Lorette. 

To-day,  as  tourists  drive  through  Quebec,  marveling  at  the 
massive  buildings  and  power  and  wealth  of  Catholic  orders,  do 
they  pause  to  consider  that  the  foundation  stones  of  that  power 
were  dyed  in  the  blood  of  these  early  martyrs  ?  Or,  as  the 
pleasure  seekers  glide  among  the  islands  of  Georgian  Bay,  do 
they  ever  ponder  that  this  fair  world  of  blue  waters  and  pink 
granite  islands  once  witnessed  the  most  bloody  tragedy  oi  brute 
force  triumphant  over  the  blasted  hopes  of  religious  zeal  ? 


CHAPTER  VI 
FROM  1050  TO  1072 

Having  destroyed  the  Hurons,  who  were  under  French  pro- 
tection, it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Iroquois  now  set  them- 
selves to  destroy  the  French.  From  Montreal  to  Tadoussac  the 
St.  Lawrence  swarmed  with  war  canoes.  No  sooner  had  the  river 
ice  broken  up  and  the  birds  begun  winging  north  than  the  Iro- 
quois flocked  down  the  current  of  the  Richelieu,  across  Lake 
St.  Peter  to  Three  Rivers,  down  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec, 
up  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Montreal.  And  the  snows  of  midwinter 
afforded  no  truce  to  the  raids,  for  the  Iroquois  cached  their 
canoes  in  the  forest,  and  roamed  the  woods  on  snowshoes. 
Settlers  fled  terrified  from  their  farms  to  the  towns  ;  farmers 
dared  not  work  in  their  fields  without  a  sentry  standing  guard; 
Montreal  became  a  prison  ;  Three  Rivers  lay  blockaded  ;  and  at 
Quebec  the  war  canoes  passed  defiantly  below  the  cannon  of 
Cape  Diamond,  paddles  beating  defiance  against  the  gun'els, 
or  prows  flaunting  the  scalps  of  victims  within  cannon  fire 
of  Castle  St.  Louis.  Rich  and  poor,  priests  and  parishioners, 
governors  and  habitants,  all  alike  trembled  before  the  lurking- 
treachery.  Father  Jogues  had  been  captured  on  his  way  from 
the  Huron  mission ;  Pere  Poncet  was  likewise  kidnapped  at 
Quebec  and  carried  to  the  tortures  of  the  Mohawk  towns  ;  and 
a  nephew  of  the  Governor  of  Quebec  was  a  few  years  later 
attacked  while  hunting  near  Lake  Champlain. 

The  outraged  people  of  New  France  realized  that  fear  was 
only  increasing  the  boldness  of  the  Iroquois.  A  Mohawk  chief 
fell  into  their  hands.  Bv  way  of  warning,  they  bound  him  to  a 
stake  and  burned  him  to  de:ith.  The  Indian  revenge  fell  swift  and 
sure.  In  1653  the  Governor  of  Three  Rivers  and  twelve  leading- 
citizens  were  murdered  a  short  distance  from  the  fort  gates. 

94 


RADISSON   CAPTURED  BY  IROOUOIS 


95 


One  night  in  May  of  1652  a  tall,  slim,  swarthy  lad  about 
sixteen  years  of  age  was  seen  winding-  his  way  home  to  Three 
Rivers  from  a  day's  shooting  in  the  marshes.  He  had  set  out  at 
day  dawn  with  some  friends,  but  fear  of  the  Iroquois  had  driven 
his  comrades  back.  Now  at  nightfall,  within  sight  of  Three 
Rivers,  when  the  sunset  glittered  from  the  chapel  spire,  he 
unslung  his  bag  of  game  and  sat  down  to  reload  his  musket. 
Then  he  noticed  that  the  pistols  in  his  belt  had  been  water- 
soaked  from  the  day's  wading,  and  he  reloaded  them  too. 

Any  one  who  is  used  to  life  in  the  open  knows  how  at 
sundown  wild  birds  foregather  for  a  last  conclave.  Ducks  were 
winging  in  myriads  and  settling  on  the  lake  with  noisy  flacker. 
Unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of  one  last  shot,  the  boy  was 
gliding  noiselessly  forward  through  the  rushes,  when  suddenly 
he  stopped  as  if  rooted  to  the  ground,  with  hands  thrown  up  and 
eyes  bulging  from  his  head.  At  his  feet  lay  the  corpses  of  his 
morning  comrades, —  scalped,  stripped,  hacked  almost  piecemeal! 
Then  the  instinct  of  the  hunted  thing,  of  flight,  of  self-protection, 
eclipsed  momentary  terror,  and  the  boy  was  ducking  into  the 
rushes  to  hide  when,  with  a  crash  of  musketry  from  the  woods,  the 
Iroquois  were  upon  him. 

When  he  regained  consciousness,  he  was  pegged  out  on  the 
sand  amid  a  flotilla  of  beached  canoes,  where  Iroquois  warriors 
were  having  an  evening  meal.  So  began  the  captivity,  the  love  of 
the  wilds,  the  wide  wanderings  of  one  of  the  most  intrepid  ex- 
plorers in  New  France, —  Pierre  Esprit  Radisson. 

His  youth  and  the  fact  that  he  would  make  a  good  warrior  were 
in  his  favor.  When  he  was  carried  back  to  the  Mohawk  town 
and  with  other  prisoners  compelled  to  run  the  gauntlet  between 
two  lines  of  tormentors,  Radisson  ran  so  last  and  dodged  so 
dexterously  that  he  was  not  once  hit.  The  feat  was  greeted 
with  shrieks  of  delight  by  the  Iroquois  ;  and  the  high-spirited 
boy  was  given  in  adoption  to  a  captive  Huron  woman. 

Things  would  have  gone  well  had  he  not  bungled  an  attempt 
to  escape  ;  but  one  night,  while  in  camp  with  three  Iroquois 
hunters,  an   Algonquin   captive   entered.     While    the    Iroquois 


96 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


slept  with  guns  stacked  against  the  trees,  the  sleepless  Algon- 
quin captive  rose  noiselessly  where  he  lay  by  the  fire,  seized  the 
Mohawk  warriors'  guns,  threw  one  tomahawk  across  to  Radisson, 
and  with  the  other  brained  two  of  the  sleepers.    The  French  boy 

aimed  a  blow  at  the 
third  sleeper,  and  the 
two  captives  escaped. 
But  they  might  have 
saved  themselves  the 
trouble.  They  were 
pursued  and  overtaken 
on  Lake  St.  Peter, 
within  sight  of  Three 
Rivers.  This  time 
Radisson  had  to  endure 
all  the  diablerie  s  of 
Mohawk  torture.  For 
two  days  he  was  kept 
bound  to  the  torture 
stake.  The  nails  were 
torn  from  his  fingers, 
the  flesh  burnt  from  the 
soles  of  his  feet,  a  hun- 
dred other  barbarous 
freaks  of  impish  In- 
dian children  wreaked 
on  the  French  boy. 
Arrows  with  flaming 
points  were  shot  at  his 
naked  body.  His  muti- 
lated finger  ends  were 
ground  between  stones,  or  thrust  into  the  smoking  bowl  of  a 
pipe  full  of  coals,  or  bitten  by  fiendish  youngsters  being  trained 
up  the  way  a  Mohawk  warrior  should  go. 

Radisson's  youth,  his  courage,  his  very  dare-devil  rashness, 
together  with  presents  of  wampum  belts  from  his  Indian  parents, 


A  CANADIAN  ON  SNOWSHOES 
(After  La  Potherie) 


RADISSON   ESCAPES  97 

saved  his  life  for  a  second  time,  and  a  year  of  wild  wanderings 
with  Mohawk  warriors  finally  brought  him  to  Albany  on  the 
Hudson,  where  the  Dutch  would  have  ransomed  him  as  the)' 
had  ransomed  the  two  Jesuits,  Jogues  and  Poncet ;  but  the  boy 
disliked  to  break  faith  a  second  time  with  his  loyal  Indian  friends. 
Still,  the  glimpse  of  white  man's  life  caused  a  terrible  upheaval  of 
revulsion  from  the  barbarities,  the  filth,  the  vice,  of  the  Mohawk 
camp.  He  could  endure  Indian  life  no  longer.  One  morning,  in 
the  fall  of  1653,  he  stole  out  from  the  Mohawk  lodges,  while  the 
mist  of  day  dawn  still  shadowed  the  forest,  and  broke  at  a  run 
down  the  trail  of  the  Mohawk  valley  for  Albany.  All  day  he  ran, 
pursued  by  the  phantom  fright  of  his  own  imagination,  fancying 
everything  that  crunched  beneath  his  moccasined  tread  some 
Mokawk  warrior,  seeing  in  the  branches  that  reeled  as  he  passed 
the  arms  of  pursuers  stretched  out  to  stop  him  ;  —  on  .  .  .  and 
on  .  .  .  and  on,  he  ran,  pausing  neither  to  eat  nor  rest ;  here 
dashing  into  the  bed  of  a  stream  and  running  along  the  pebbled 
bottom  to  throw  pursuers  off  the  trail;  there  breaking  through  a 
thicket  of  brushwood  away  from  the  trail,  only  to  come  back 
to  it  breathless  farther  on,  when  some  alarm  of  the  wind  in  the 
trees  or  deer  on  the  move  had  proved  false.  Only  muscles  of 
iron  strength,  lithe  as  elastic,  could  have  endured  the  strain. 
Nightfall  at  last  came,  hiding  him  from  pursuers  ;  but  still  he 
sped  on  at  a  run,  following  the  trail  by  the  light  of  the  stars 
and  the  rush  of  the  river.  By  sunrise  of  the  second  day  he  was 
staggering  ;  for  the  rocks  were  slippery  with  frost  and  his  moc- 
casins worn  to  tatters.  It  was  four  in  the  afternoon  before  he 
reached  the  first  outlying  cabin  of  the  Dutch  settlers.  For  three 
days  he  lay  hidden  in  Albany  behind  sacks  of  wheat  in  a  thin- 
boarded  attic,  through  the  cracks  of  which  he  could  see  the 
Mohawks  searching  everywhere.  The  Jesuit  Poncet  gave  him 
passage  money  to  take  ship  to  Europe  by  way  of  New  York. 
New  York  was  then  a  village  of  a  few  hundred  houses,  thatch- 
roofed,  with  stone  fort,  stone  church,  stone  barracks.  Central 
Park  was  a  rocky  wilderness.  What  is  now  Wall  Street  was  the 
stamping  ground  of  pigs  and  goats.    January  of  1654  Radisson 


98  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

reached   Europe,  no  longer  a  boy,  but  a  man  inured  to  danger 
and  hardships  and  daring,  though  not  yet  eighteen. 

When  Radisson  came  back  to  Three  Rivers  in  May  he  found 
changes  had  taken  place  in  New  France.  Among  the  men  mur- 
dered with  the  Governor  of  Three  Rivers  by  the  Mohawks  the 
preceding  year  had  been  his  sister's  husband,  and  the  widow 
had  married  one  Medard  Chouart  de  Groseillers,  who  had  served 
in  the  Huron  country  as  a  lay  helper  with  the  martyred  Jesuits. 
Also  a  truce  had  been  patched  up  between  the  Iroquois  and 
the  French.  The  Iroquois  were  warring  against  the  Eries  and 
wanted  arms  from  the  French.  A  still  more  treacherous  motive 
underlay  the  Iroquois'  peace.  They  wanted  a  French  settle- 
ment in  their  country  as  a  guarantee  of  non-intervention  when 
they  continued  to  raid  the  refugee  Hurons.  Such  duplicity  was 
unsuspected  by  New  France.  The  Jesuits  looked  upon  the 
peace  as  designed  by  Providence  to  enable  them  to  establish 
missions  among  the  Iroquois.  Father  Le  Moyne  went  from 
village  to  village  preaching  the  gospel  and  receiving  belts  of 
wampum  as  tokens  of  peace- — one  belt  containing  as  many  as 
seven  thousand  beads.  When  the  Onondagas  asked  for  a  French 
colony,  Lauzon,  the  French  Governor,  readily  consented  if  the 
Jesuits  would  pay  the  cost,  estimated  at  about  $10,000;  and  in 
1656  Major  Dupuis  had  led  fifty  Frenchmen  and  four  Jesuits 
up  the  St.  Lawrence  in  long  boats  through  the  wilderness  to  a 
little  hill  on  Lake  Onondaga,  where  a  palisaded  fort  was  built, 
and  the  lilies  of  France,  embroidered  on  a  white  silk  flag  by  the 
Ursuline  nuns,  flung  from  the  breeze  above  the  Iroquois  land. 
The  colony  was  hardly  established  before  three  hundred  Mo- 
hawks fell  on  the  Hurons  encamped  under  shelter  of  Quebec, 
butchered  without  mercy,  and  departed  with  shouts  of  laughter 
that  echoed  below  the  guns  at  Cape  Diamond,  scalps  waving 
from  the  prow  of  each  Iroquois  canoe.  Quebec  was  thunder- 
struck, numb  with  fright.  The  French  dared  not  retaliate,  or  the 
Iroquois  would  fall  on  the  colony  at  Onondaga.  Perhaps  peo- 
ple  who  keep  their  vision  too  constantly  fixed  on  heaven  lose 


AT  ONONDAdA 


99 


sight  of  the  practical  duties  of  earth  ;  but  when  eighty  Onon- 
dagas  came  again  in  1657,  inviting  a  hundred  Ilurons  to  join 
the  Iroquois  Confederacy,  the  Jesuits  again  suspected  no 
treachery  in  the  invitation,  but  saw  only  a  providential  oppor- 
tunity to  spread  one  hundred  Huron  converts  among  the  Iro- 
quois pagans.  Father  Ragueneau,  who  had  led  the  poor  refugees 
down  from  the  Christian  Islands  on  Georgian  Bay,  now  with 
another  priest  offered  to  accompany  the  Hurons  to  the  Iroquois 
nation.  An  interpreter  was  needed.  Young  Radisson,  now 
twenty-one  years  of  age,  offered  to  go  as  a  lay  helper,  and  the 


sauson's  map,  1656 

party  of  two  hundred  and  twenty  French,  eighty  Iroquois,  one 
hundred  Hurons,  departed  from  the  gates  of  Montreal,  July  26. 

Hardly  were  they  beyond  recall,  before  scouts  brought  word 
that  twelve  hundred  Iroquois  had  gone  on  the  warpath  against 
Canada,  and  three  Frenchmen  of  Montreal  had  been  scalped. 
At  last  the  Governor  of  Quebec  bestirred  himself:  he  caused 
twelve  Iroquois  to  be  seized  and  held  as  hostages  for  the  safety 
of  the  French. 

The  Onondagas  had  set  out  from  Montreal  carrying  the 
Frenchmen's  baggage.  Beyond  the  first  portage  they  thing 
the  packs  on  the  ground,  hurried  the  Hurons  into  canoes  so 
that  no   two  Hurons   were  in  one  boat,  and  paddled    over   the 


IOO  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

water  with  loud  laughter,  leaving  the  French  in  the  lurch. 
Father  Ragueneau  and  Radisson  quickly  read  the  ominous  signs. 
Telling  the  other  French  to  gather  up  the  baggage,  they  armed 
themselves  and  paddled  in  swift  pursuit.  That  night  Rague- 
neau's  party  and  the  Onondagas  camped  together.  Nothing  was 
said  or  done  to  evince  treachery.  Friends  and  enemies,  Onon- 
dagas and  Hurons  and  white  men,  paddled  and  camped  together 
for  another  week  ;  but  when,  on  August  3,  four  Huron  war- 
riors and  two  women  forcibly  seized  a  canoe  and  headed  back 
for  Montreal,  the  Onondagas  would  delay  no  longer.  That  after- 
noon as  the  Indians  paddled  inshore  to  camp  on  one  of  the 
Thousand  Islands,  some  Onondaga  braves  rushed  into  the  woods 
as  if  to  hunt.  As  the  canoes  grated  the  pebbled  shore  a  secret 
signal  was  given.  The  Huron  men  with  their  eyes  bent  on  the 
beach,  intent  on  landing,  never  knew  that  they  had  been  struck. 
Onondaga  hatchets,  clubs,  spears,  were  plied  from  the  water  side, 
and  from  the  hunters  ambushed  on  shore  crashed  musketry  that 
mowed  down  those  who  would  have  fled  to  the  woods. 

By  night  time  only  a  few  Huron  women  and  the  French  had 
survived  the  massacre.  Such  was  the  baptism  of  blood  that 
inaugurated  the  French  colony  at  Onondaga.  Luckily  the  fort 
built  on  the  crest  of  the  hill  above  Lake  Onondaga  was  large 
enough  to  house  stock  and  provisions.  Outside  the  palisades 
there  daily  gathered  more  Iroquois  warriors,  who  no  longer  dis- 
sembled a  hunger  for  Jesuits'  preaching.  Among  the  warriors 
were  Radisson's  old  friends  of  the  Mohawks,  and  his  foster  father 
confessed  to  him  frankly  that  the  Confederacy  were  only  delay- 
ing the  massacre  of  the  French  till  they  could  somehow  obtain 
the  freedom  of  the  twelve  Iroquois  hostages  held  at  Quebec. 

Daily  more  warriors  gathered  ;  nightly  the  war  drum  pounded ; 
week  after  week  the  beleaguered  and  imprisoned  French  heard 
their  stealthy  enemy  closing  nearer  and  nearer  on  them,  and  the 
painted  foliage  of  autumn  frosts  gave  place  to  the  leafless  trees 
and  the  drifting  snows  of  midwinter.  The  French  were  hemmed 
in  completely  as  if  on  a  desert  isle,  and  no  help  could  come  from 
Quebec,  where  New  France  was  literally  under  Iroquois  siege. 


HOW  THE  FRENCH  WERE  SAVED  ioi 

The  question  was,  what  to  do  ?  Messengers  had  heen 
secretly  sent  to  Quebec,  but  the  Mohawks  had  caught  the 
scouts  bringing  back  answers,  and  there  was  no  safe  escape 
from  the  colony  through  ambushed  woods  in  midwinter.  The 
Iroquois  could  afford  to  bide  their  time  for  victims  who  could 
not  escape.  All  winter  the  whites  secretly  built  boats  in  the 
lofts  of  the  fort,  but  when  the  timbers  were  put  together  the 
boats  had  to  be  brought  downstairs,  and  a  Huron  convert 
spread  a  terrifying  report  of  a  second  deluge  for  which  the  white 
men  were  preparing  a  second  Noah's  Ark.  Mohawk  warriors 
at  once  scented  an  attempt  to  escape  when  the  ice  broke  up  in 
spring,  and  placed  their  braves  in  ambush  along  the  portages. 
Also  they  sent  a  deputation  to  see  if  that  story  of  the  boats 
were  true.  Forewarned  by  Radisson,  the  whites  built  a  floor 
over  the  boats,  heaped  canoes  above  the  floor,  and  invited  the 
Mohawk  spies  in.  The  Mohawks  smiled  grimly  and  were  reas- 
sured. Canoes  would  be  ripped  into  shingles  if  they  ran  the  ice 
jam  of  spring.  The  Iroquois  felt  doubly  certain  of  their  victims  ; 
but  Radisson,  free  to  go  among  the  warriors  as  one  of  them- 
selves, learned  that  they  were  plotting  to  murder  half  the  colony 
and  hold  the  other  half  as  hostages  for  the  safety  of  the  twelve 
Indians  in  the  dungeon  at  Quebec.  The  whites  could  delay  no 
longer.  Something  must  be  done,  but  what  ?  Radisson,  knowing 
the  Indian  customs,  proposed  a  way  out. 

No  normally  built  savage  could  refuse  an  invitation  to  a 
sumptuous  feast.  According  to  Indian  custom,  no  feaster  dare 
leave  uneaten  food  on  his  plate.  Waste  to  the  Indian  is  crime. 
In  the  words  of  the  Scotch  proverb,  "  Better  burst  than  waste." 
And  all  Indians  have  implicit  faith  in  dreams.  Radisson  dreamed 
—  so  he  told  the  Indians  —  that  the  white  men  were  to  give 
them  a  marvelous  banquet.  No  sooner  dreamed  than  done  ! 
The  Iroquois  probably  thought  it  a  chance  to  obtain  possession 
inside  the  fort ;  but  the  whites  had  taken  good  care  to  set  the 
banquet  between  inner  and  outer  walls. 

Such  a  repast  no  savage  had  ever  enjoyed  in  the  memory  of 
the  race.    All  the  ambushed  spies  flocked  in  from  the  portages. 


102  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

The  painted  warriors  washed  off  their  grease,  donned  their  best 
buckskin,  and  rallied  to  the  banquet  as  to  battle.  All  the  stock 
but  one  solitary  pig',  a  few  chickens  and  dogs,  had  been 
slaughtered  for  the  kettle.  Such  an  odor  of  luscious  meat 
steamed  up  from  the  fort  for  days  as  whetted  the  warriors'  hun- 
ger to  the  appetite  of  ravenous  wolves.  Finally,  one  night,  the 
trumpets  blew  a  blare  that  almost  burst  eardrums.  Fifes 
shrilled,  and  the  rub-a-dub-dub  of  a  dozen  drums  set  the  air  in 
a  tremor.  A  great  lire  had  been  kindled  between  the  inner  and 
outer  walls  that  set  shadows  dancing  in  the  forest.  Then  the 
gates  were  thrown  open,  and  in  trooped  the  feasters.  All  the 
French  acting  as  waiters,  the  whites  carried  in  the  kettles  — 
kettles  of  wild  fowl,  kettles  of  oxen,  kettles  of  dogs,  kettles  of 
porridge  and  potatoes  and  corn  and  what  not  ?  That  is  it  ■ — 
what  not  ?  Were  the  kettles  drugged  ?  Who  knows  ?  The  feast- 
ers ate  till  their  eyes  were  rolling  lugubriously  ;  and  still  the 
kettles  came  round.  The  Indians  ate  till  they  were  torpid  as 
swollen  corpses,  and  still  came  the  white  men  with  more  kettles, 
while  the  mischievous  French  lad,  Radisson,  danced  a  mad  jig, 
shouting,  yelling,  "  Eat !  eat !  Beat  the  drum  !  Awake  !  awake  ! 
Cheer  up  !   Eat !  eat  !  " 

By  midnight  every  soul  of  the  feast  had  tumbled  over  sound 
asleep,  and  at  the  rear  gates  were  the  French,  stepping  noise- 
lessly, speaking  in  whispers,  launching  their  boats  loaded  with 
provisions  and  ammunition.  The  soldiers  were  for  going  back 
and  butchering  every  warrior,  but  the  Jesuits  forbade  such 
treachery.  Then  Radisson,  light-spirited  as  if  the  refugees  had 
been  setting  out  on  a  holiday,  perpetrated  yet  a  last  trick  on 
the  warriors.  To  the  bell  rope  of  the  main  gate  he  fastened  a 
pig,  so  when  the  Indians  would  pull  the  rope  for  admission, 
they  would  hear  the  tramp  of  a  sentry  inside.  Then  he  stuffed 
effigies  of  men  on  guard  round  the  windows  of  the  fort. 

It  was  a  pitchy,  sleety  night,  the  river  roaring  with  the  loose 
ice  of  spring  flood,  the  forests  noisy  with  the  boisterous  March 
wind.  Out  on  the  maelstrom  of  ice  and  flood  launched  the 
fifty-three  colonists,  March  20,  1658.    By  April  they  were  safe 


WORD  OF  THE  WESTERN   LAND  103 

inside  the  walls  of  Quebec,  and  chance  hunters  brought  word 
that  what  with  sleep,  and  the  measured  tramp,  tramp  of  the  pig, 
and  the  baying  of  the  dogs,  and  the  clucking  of  the  chickens 
inside  the  fort,  the  escape  of  the  whites  had  not  been  discovered 
for  a  week.  The  Indians  thought  the  whites  had  gone  into 
retreat  for  especially  long  prayers.  Then  a  warrior  climbed  the 
inner  palisades,  and  rage  knew  no  bounds.  The  fort  was  looted 
and  burnt  to  the  ground. 

Peltry  traffic  was  the  life  of  New  France.  Without  it  the  col- 
ony would  have  perished,  and  now  the  rupture  of  peace  with  the 
Iroquois  cut  off  that  traffic.  To  the  Iroquois  land  south  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  the  French  dared  not  go,  and  the  land  of  the  Hurons 
was  a  devastated  wilderness.  The  boats  that  came  out  to  New 
France  were  compelled  to  return  without  a  single  peltry,  but 
there  still  remained  the  unknown  land  of  the  Algonquin  north- 
west and  beyond  the  Great  Lakes.  Year  after  year  young 
French  adventurers  essayed  the  exploration  of  that  land.  In 
1634  Jean  Nicolet,  one  of  Champlain's  wood  runners,  had  gone 
westward  as  far  as  Green  Bay  and  coasted  the  shores  of  Lake 
Michigan.  Jesuits,  where  they  preached  on  Lake  Superior,  had 
been  told  of  a  vast  land  beyond  the  Sweet  Water  Seas, —  Great 
Lakes, —  a  land  where  wandered  tribes  of  warriors  powerful  as 
the  Iroquois. 

Yearly,  when  the  Algonquins  came  down  the  Ottawa  to  trade, 
Jesuits  and  young  French  adventurers  accompanied  the  canoes 
back  up  the  Ottawa,  hoping  to  reach  the  Unknown  Land,  which 
rumor  said  was  bounded  only  by  the  Western  Sea.  However, 
the  priests  went  no  farther  than  Lake  Nipissing  ;  but  two  name- 
less French  wood  runners  came  back  from  Green  Bay  in  August 
of  1656  with  marvelous  tales  of  wandering  hunters  to  the  north 
called  "  Christinos  "  (Crees),  who  passed  the  winter  hunting 
buffalo  on  a  land  bare  of  trees  (the  prairie)  and  the  summer  fish- 
ing on  the  shores  of  the  North  Sea  (Hudson's  Bay).  They  told 
also  of  fierce  tribes  south  of  the  Christinos  (the  Sioux),  who 
traded  with  the  Indians  of  the  Spanish  settlements  in  Mexico. 


104  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

All  New  France  became  fired  by  these  reports.  When  Ra- 
disson  returned  from  Onondaga  in  April  of  1659,  he  found  his 
brother-in-law,  Chouart  Groseillers,  just  back  from  Nipissing, 
where  he  had  been  serving  the  Jesuits,  with  more  tales  of  this 
marvelous  undiscovered  land.  The  two  kinsmen  decided  to  go 
back  with  the  Algonquins  that  very  year  ;  for,  confessed  Radisson 
in  his  journal,  "  I  longed  to  see  myself  again  in  a  boat." 

Thirty  other  Frenchmen  and  two  Jesuits  had  assembled  in 
Montreal  to  join  the  Algonquins.  More  than  sixty  canoes  set  out 
from  Montreal  in  June,  the  one  hundred  and  forty  Algonquins 
well  supplied  with  firearms  to  defend  themselves  from  marauding 
Iroquois.  Numbers  begot  courage,  courage  carelessness  ;  and 
before  the  fleet  had  reached  the  Chaudiere  Falls,  at  the  modern 
city  of  Ottawa,  the  canoes  had  spread  far  apart  in  utter  forget- 
fulness  of  clanger.  Not  twenty  were  within  calling  distance  when 
an  Indian  prophet,  or  wandering  medicine  man,  ran  down  to  the 
shore,  throwing  his  blanket  and  hatchet  aside  as  signal  of  peace, 
and  shouting  out  warning  of  Iroquois  warriors  ambushed  farther 
up  the  river. 

Drunk  with  the  new  sense  of  power  from  the  possession  of 
French  firearms,  perhaps  drunk  too  with  French  brandy  ob- 
tained at  Montreal,  the  Algonquins  paused  to  take  the  strange 
captive  on  board,  and  returned  thanks  for  the  friendly  warning 
by  calling  their  benefactor  a  "coward  and  a  dog  and  a  hen." 
At  the  same  time  they  took  the  precaution  of  sleeping  in  mid- 
stream with  their  canoes  abreast  tied  to  water-logged  trees.  A 
dull  roar  through  the  night  mist  foretold  they  were  nearing  the 
great  Chaudiere  Falls  ;  and  at  first  streak  of  day  dawn  there 
was  a  rush  to  land  and  cross  the  long  portage  before  the  mist 
lifted  and  exposed  them  to  the  hostiles. 

To  any  one  who  knows  the  region  of  Canada's  capital  the 
scene  can  easily  be  recalled  :  the  long  string  of  canoes  gliding 
through  the  gray  morning  like  phantoms  ;  Rideau  Falls  shim- 
mering on  the  left  like  a  snowy  curtain;  the  dense  green  of 
Gatineau  Point  as  the  birch  craft  swerved  across  the  river  inshore 
to  the  right ;  the  wooded  heights,  now  known  as  Parliament  Hill, 


WESTWARD  BOUND  105 

jutting  above  the  river  mist,  the  new  foliage  of  the  topmost  trees 
just  tipped  with  the  first  primrose  shafts  of  sunrise  ;  then  the 
vague  stir  and  unrest  in  the  air  as  the  sun  came  up  till  the  gray 
fog  became  rose  mist  shot  with  gold,  and  rose  like  a  curtain  to 
the  upper  airs,  revealing  the  angry,  tempest-tossed  cataract 
straight  ahead,  hurtling  over  the  rocks  of  the  Chaudiere  in  walls 
of  living  waters.  Where  the  lumber  piles  of  Hull  on  the  right 
to-day  jut  out  as  if  to  span  Ottawa  River  to  Parliament  Hill,  the 
voyageurs  would  land  to  portage  across  to  Lake  Du  Chene. 

Just  as  they  sheered  inshore  the  morning  air  was  split  by  a 
hideous  din  of  guns  and  war  whoops.  The  Iroquois  had  been 
lying  in  ambush  at  the  portage.  The  Algonquins'  bravado  now 
became  a  panic.  They  abandoned  canoes  and  baggage,  threw 
themselves  behind  a  windfall  of  trees,  and  poured  a  steady  rain 
of  bullets  across  the  portage  in  order  to  permit  the  other  canoes 
to  come  ashore.  When  the  fog  lifted,  baggage  and  canoes  lay 
scattered  on  the  shore.  Behind  one  barricade  of  logs  lay  the 
French  and  Algonquins  ;  behind  another,  the  Iroquois  ;  and 
woe  betide  the  warrior  who  showed  his  head  or  dared  to 
cross  the  open.  All  day  the  warriors  kept  up  their  cross  fire. 
Thirteen  Algonquins  had  perished,  and  the  French  were  only 
waiting  a  chance  to  abandon  the  voyage.  Luckily,  that  night 
was  pitch-dark.  The  Algonquin  leader  blew  a  long  low  call 
through  his  birch  trumpet.  All  hands  rallied  and  rushed  for 
the  boats  to  cross  the  river.  All  the  Frenchmen's  baggage  had 
been  lost.  Of  the  white  adventurers  every  soul  turned  back 
but  Groseillers  and  Radisson. 

The  Algonquins  now  made  up  in  caution  what  they  had  at 
first  lacked.  They  voyaged  only  by  night  and  hid  by  day.  No 
camp  fires  were  kindled.  No  muskets  were  fired  even  tor  game  ; 
and  the  paddlers  were  presently  reduced  to  food  of  tripe  de 
roche  —  green  moss  scraped  from  rocks.  Birch  canoes  could 
not  cross  Lake  Huron  in  storm  ;  so  the  Indians  kept  close  to 
the  south  shore  of  Georgian  Bay,  winding  among  the  pink  granite 
islands,  past  the  ruined  Jesuit  missions  across  to  the  Straits  o\ 
Mackinac  and  on  down  Lake  Michigan  to  Green  Bay. 


106  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

"  But  our  mind  was  not  to  stay  here,"  relates  Radisson,  "but 
to  know  the  remotest  people."  Sometime  between  April  and 
July  of  1659  the  two  white  men  had  followed  the  Indian  hunters 
across  what  is  now  the  state  of  Wisconsin  to  "  a  mighty  river 
like  the  St.  Lawrence."  They  had  found  the  Mississippi,  first  of 
white  men  to  view  the  waters  since  the  treasure-seeking  Spaniards 
of  the  south  crossed  the  river.  They  had  penetrated  the  Un- 
known. They  had  discovered  the  Great  Northwest  —  a  world 
boundlessly  vast ;  so  vast  no  man  forever  after  in  the  history  of 
the  human  race  need  be  dispossessed  of  his  share  of  the  earth. 
Something  of  the  importance  of  the  discovery  seems  to  have 
impressed  Radisson  ;  for  he  speaks  of  the  folly  of  the  European 
nations  fighting  for  sterile,  rocky  provinces  when  here  is  land 
enough  for  all —  land  enough  to  banish  poverty. 

The  two  Frenchmen's  wanderings  with  the  tribes  of  the 
prairie  —  whether  those  tribes  were  Omahas  or  Iowas  or  Man- 
cfones  or  Mascoutins  or  Sioux  —  cannot  be  told  here.  It  would 
fill  volumes.  I  have  told  the  story  fully  elsewhere.  By  spring  of 
1660  Radisson  and  Groseillers  are  back  at  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  hav- 
ing gathered  wealth  of  beaver  peltries  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice ;  but  scouts  have  come  to  the  Sault  with  ominous  news  — 
news  of  one  thousand  Iroquois  braves  on  the  warpath  to  destroy 
every  settlement  in  New  France.  Hourly,  daily,  weekly,  have 
Quebec  and  Three  Rivers  and  Montreal  been  awaiting  the  blow. 

The  Algonquins  refuse  to  go  down  to  Quebec  with  Radisson 
and  Groseillers.  "  Fools,"  shouts  Radisson  in  full  assembly  of 
their  chiefs  squatting  round  a  council  fire,  "are  you  going  to 
allow  the  Iroquois  to  destroy  you  as  they  destroyed  the  Hurons  ? 
How  are  you  going  to  fight  the  Iroquois  unless  you  come  clown 
to  Quebec  for  guns  ?  Do  you  want  to  see  your  wives  and  children 
slaves  ?  For  my  part,  I  prefer  to  die  like  a  man  rather  than 
live  a  slave." 

The  chiefs  were  shamed  out  of  their  cowardice.  Five  hun- 
dred young  warriors  undertook  to  conduct  the  two  white  men 
down  to  Quebec.  They  embarked  at  once,  scouts  to  the  fore 
reconnoitering  all  portages,  and  guards  on  duty  wherever  the 


DOLLARD'S  HEROES  107 

boats  landed.  A  few  Iroquois  braves  were  seen  near  the  Long 
Sault  Rapids,  but  they  took  to  their  heels  in  such  evident 
fright  that  Radisson  was  puzzled  to  know  what  had  become  of 
the  one  thousand  braves  on  the  warpath.  Carrying  the  beaver 
pelts  along  the  portage  so  they  could  be  used  as  shields  in  case 
of  attack,  the  Algonquins  came  to  the  foot  of  the  Long  Sault 
Rapids  near  Montreal,  and  saw  plainly  what  had  happened  to 
the  invading  warriors.  A  barricade  of  logs  the  shape  of  a  square 
fort  stood  on  the  shore.  From  the  pickets  hung  the  scalps  of 
dead  Indians  and  on  the  sands  lay  the  charred  remains  of 
white  men.  Every  tree  for  yards  round  was  peppered  with 
bullet  holes.  Here  was  a  charred  stake  where  some  victim 
had  been  tortured  ;  there  the  smashed  remnants  of  half-burnt 
canoes ;  and  at  another  point  empty  powder  barrels.  A  ter- 
rible battle  had  been  waged  but  a  week  before.  Radisson  could 
trace,  inside  the  barricade  of  logs,  holes  scooped  in  the  sand 
where  the  beseiged,  desperate  with  thirst,  had  drunk  the  muddy 
water.  At  intervals  in  the  palisades  openings  had  been  hacked, 
and  these  were  blood  stained,  as  if  the  scene  of  the  fiercest 
fighting.  Bark  had  been  burnt  from  the  logs  in  places,  where 
the  assailants  had  set  fire  to  the  fort. 

From  Indian  refugees  at  Montreal,  Radisson  learned  details 
of  the  fight.  It  was  the  battle  most  famous  in  early  Canadian 
annals- — the  Long  Sault.  All  winter  Quebec,  Three  Rivers, 
and  Montreal  had  cowered  in  terror  of  the  coming  Iroquois.  In 
imagination  the  beleaguered  garrisons  foresaw  themselves  mar- 
tyrs of  Mohawk  ferocity.  It  was  learned  that  seven  hundred  of 
the  Iroquois  warriors  were  hovering  round  the  Richelieu  opposite 
Three  Rivers.  The  rest  of  the  braves  had  passed  the  winter 
man-hunting  in  the  Huron  country,  and  were  in  spring  descend- 
ing the  Ottawa  to  unite  with  the  lower  band. 

Week  after  week  Quebec  awaited  the  blow  ;  but  the  blow- 
never  fell,  for  at  Montreal  was  a  little  band  of  seventeen  heroes, 
led  by  a  youth  of  twenty-five, —  Adam  Dollard,  —  who  longed 
to  wipe  out  the  stain  of  a  misspent  boyhood  by  some  glorious 
exploit  in  the  service  of  the  Holy  Cross. 


I08  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

When  word  came  that  the  upper  foragers  were  descending 
from  the  country  of  the  Hurons  to  unite  with  the  lower  Iroquois 
against  Montreal,  Dollard  proposed  to  go  up  the  Ottawa  with  a 
picked  party  of  chosen  fighters,  waylay  the  Iroquois  at  the  foot 
of  the  Long  Sault  Rapids,  and  so  prevent  the  attack  on  Montreal. 
Sixteen  young  men  volunteered  to  join  him.  Charles  Le  Moyne, 
now  acting  as  interpreter  at  Montreal,  begged  the  young  heroes 
to  delay  till  reinforcements  could  be  obtained  :  seventeen  French- 
men against  five  hundred  Mohawks  meant  certain  death  ;  but 
delay  meant  risk,  and  Dollard  coveted  nothing  more  than  a  death 
of  glory.  At  the  chapel  of  the  Hotel  Dieu  the  young  heroes 
made  what  they  knew  would  certainly  be  their  last  confession, 
bade  eternal  farewell  to  friends,  and  with  crushed  corn  for 
provisions  set  out  in  canoes  for  the  upper  Ottawa.  May  i, 
they  came  to  the  foot  of  the  Long  Sault.  Here  a  barricade  of 
logs  had  been  erected  in  some  skirmish  the  year  before,  and 
here,  too,  was  the  usual  camping  place  of  the  Iroquois  as  their 
canoes  came  bounding  down  the  swift  waters  of  the  Ottawa. 
Dollard  and  his  brave  boys  landed,  slung  their  kettles  for  the 
night  meal,  and  sent  scouts  upstream  to  forewarn  when  the 
Iroquois  came.  The  night  was  passed  in  prayer.  Next  day 
arrived  unexpected  reinforcements.  Two  bands  of  forty  Hurons 
and  four  Algonquins,  under  a  brave  Huron  convert  of  the 
Christian  Islands,  had  asked  Maisonneuve's  permission  to  join 
Dollard  and  wreak  their  pent  vengeance  on  the  Mohawks. 
Early  one  morning  the  scouts  reported  five  Iroquois  canoes 
coming  slowly  downstream,  and  two  hundred  more  warriors 
behind.  There  was  not  even  care  to  bring  a  supply  of  water 
inside  the  barricade  or  remove  kettles  from  the  sticks.  Posted 
in  ambush,  the  young  soldiers  fired  as  soon  as  the  first  canoes 
came  within  range.  This  put  the  rest  of  the  Iroquois  on  guard. 
The  whites  rushed  for  the  shelter  of  their  barricade.  The 
Indians  dashed  to  erect  a  fort  of  their  own.  Inside  Dollard's 
palisades  all  was  activity.  Cracks  were  plastered  up  with  mud 
between  logs,  four  marksmen  with  double  stands  of  arms  posted 
at  each  loophole,  and  a  big  musketoon  leveled  straight  for  the 


THE   FIGHT  AT  THE  LONG  SAULT  109 

Iroquois  redoubt.  The  Iroquois  rushed  out  yelling  like  fiends, 
and  jumping  sideways  as  they  advanced,  to'  avoid  becoming 
targets  ;  but  the  scattering  fire  of  the  musketoon  caught  them 
full  abreast  and  a  Seneca  chief  fell  dead.  The  Iroquois  then 
broke  up  Dollard's  canoes  and  tried  to  set  fire  to  the  logs  ;  but 
again  the  musketoon 's  scattering  bullets  mowed  a  swath  of 
death  in  the  advancing  ranks,  and  for  a  second  time  the  red 
warriors  sought  shelter  behind  the  logs.  Probably  to  obtain 
truce  till  they  could  send  word  to  the  other  warriors  on  the 
Richelieu,  the  Iroquois  then  hung  out  a  flag  of  parley  ;  but  the 
Huron  chief  knew  what  peace  with  an  Iroquois  meant.  He  it 
was,  on  the  Christian  Islands,  who,  when  the  Iroquois  had  pro- 
posed a  similar  parley  for  the  purpose  of  massacring  the  Hurons, 
invited  their  chiefs  into  the  Huron  camp  and  brained  them  for 
their  treachery.  Dollard's  band  made  answer  to  the  flag  hoisted 
above  the  Iroquois  pickets  by  rushing  out,  securing  the  head  of 
the  Seneca  chief,  and  elevating  it  on  a  pike  above  their  fort. 

But  as  the  fight  went  on,  the  whites  had  to  have  water,  and 
a  few  rilshed  for  the  river  to  fill  kettles.  This  rejoiced  the 
hearts  of  the  Iroquois.  They  could  guess  if  the  whites  were  short 
of  water,  it  only  required  more  warriors  to  surround  the  barri- 
cade completely  and  compel  surrender.  Scouts  had  meanwhile 
gone  for  the  Iroquois  at  Richelieu  ;  and  on  the  fifth  da)'  of  the 
siege  a  roar,  gathering  volume  as  it  approached,  told  Dollard 
that  the  seven  hundred  warriors  were  coming  through  the  forest. 
Among  the  newcomers  were  Huron  renegades,  who  approached 
within  speaking  distance  of  the  fort  and  called  out  for  the 
Hurons  to  save  themselves  from  death  by  surrender.  Death 
was  plainly  inevitable,  and  all  the  Hurons  but  the  chief  deserted. 
This  reduced  Dollard's  band  from  sixty  to  twenty.  The  whites 
were  now  weak  from  lack  of  food  and  sleep  ;  but  for  three  more 
days  and  nights  the  marksmen  and  musketoon  plied  such  deadly 
aim  at  the  assailants  that  the  Iroquois  actually  held  a  council 
whether  they  should  retire.  The  Iroquois  chiefs  argued  that  it 
would  disgrace  the  nation  forever  if  one  thousand  of  their 
warriors  were  to  retire  before  a  handful  of  beardless  white  boys. 


HO    CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Solemnly  the  bundle  of  war  sticks  was  thrown  on  the  ground. 
Then  each  warrior  willing  to  go  on  with  the  siege  picked  up  a 
stick.  The  chiefs  chose  first  and  the  rest  were  shamed  into 
doing  likewise.  Inside  the  fort,  Dollard's  men  were  at  the  last 
extremities.  Blistered  and  blackened  with  powder  smoke,  the 
fevered  men  were  half  delirious  from  lack  of  sleep  and  water. 
Some  fell  to  their  knees  and  prayed.  Others  staggered  with 
sleep  where  they  stood.  Others  had  not  strength  to  stand  and 
sank,  muttering  prayers,  to  their  knees.  The  Iroquois  were 
adopting  new  tactics.  They  could  not  reach  the  palisades  in 
the  face  of  the  withering  fire  from  the  musketoon,  so  they 
constructed  a  movable  palisade  of  trees,  behind  which  marched 
the  entire  band  of  warriors.  In  vain  Dollard's  marksmen  aimed 
their  bullets  at  the  front  carriers.  Where  one  fell  another 
stepped  in  his  place.  Desperate,  Dollard  resolved  on  a  last 
expedient.  Some  accounts  say  he  took  a  barrel  of  powder  ; 
others,  that  he  wrapped  powder  in  a  huge  bole  of  birch  bark. 
Putting  a  light  to  this,  he  threw  it  with  all  his  might ;  but  his 
strength  had  failed  ;  the  dangerous  projectile  fell  back  inside 
the  barricade,  exploding ;  marksmen  were  driven  from  their 
places.  A  moment  later  the  Iroquois  were  inside  the  barricade 
screeching  like  demons.  They  found  only  three  Frenchmen  alive  ; 
and  so  great  was  the  Mohawk  rage  to  be  foiled  of  victims  that 
they  fell  on  the  Huron  renegades  in  their  own  ranks  and  put  them 
to  death  on  the  spot. 

Such  was  the  Battle  of  the  Long  Sault  of  which  Radisson  saw 
the  scars  on  his  way  down  the  Ottawa.  It  saved  New  France. 
If  seventeen  boys  could  fight  in  this  fashion,  how  —  the  Iroquois 
asked  —  would  a  fort  full  of  men  fight  ?  A  few  days  later 
Radisson  was  conducted  in  triumph  through  the  streets  of  Que- 
bec and  personally  welcomed  by  the  new  governor,  d'Argenson. 

It  can  well  be  imagined  that  Radisson's  account  of  the  vast 
new  lands  discovered  by  him  aroused  enthusiasm  at  Quebec. 
Among  the  Crees,  Radisson  and  Groseillers  had  heard  of  that 
Sea  of  the   North  —  Hudson  Bay  —  to  which   Champlain  had 


TO  SEEK  THE  NORTH  SEA 


I  I  I 


RELATION 

D.E  CE  QVI  S'EST  PASSE 

DB    PLVS   REMARQ.VABLE 

AVX  MISSIONS  DES  PERES 
De  la  Compagnic  dc  I  b  s v  s 

E  N.  L  A 

NOVVELLE    FRANCE. 

es  anne'cs  16  6 1. &  1 C  6  3. 
Enuoyee  att  R.  P.  Andre  Caftillon  ,  Pro- 
vincial de'  la  Prouihce  de  JTrance* 


tried  to  go  by  way  of  the  Ottawa.  The  Indians  had  promised 
to  conduct  the  two  Frenchmen  overland  to  the  North  Sea ;  but 
Radisson  deemed  it  wise  not  to  reveal  this  fact  lest  other  voya- 
geurs  should  fore- 
stall them.  Some- 
how the  secret 
leaked  out.  Either 
Groseillers  told  it 
or  his  wife  dropped 
some  hint  of  it  to 
her  father  confes- 
sor ;  but  the  two 
explorers  were 
amazed  to  receive 
official  orders  to 
conduct  the  Jesuits 
to  the  North  Sea  by 
way  of  the  Sague- 
nay.  They  refused 
point-blank  to  go  as 
subordinates  on  any 
expedition.  The  fur 
trade  was  at  this 
time  regulated  by 
license.  Any  one 
who  proceeded  to 
the  woods  without 
license  was  liable  to 
imprisonment,  the 
galleys  for  life, 
death  if  the  offense 
were     repeated  title-page  —  jesuit  relation  of  1662-1663 

Radisson  and  Groseillers  asked  for  a  license  to  go  north  in  1661. 
D'Avaugour,  a  bluff  soldier  who  had  become  governor,  would 
grant  it  only  on  condition  of  receiving  half  the  profits.  Groseillers 
and  Radisson  set  off  by  night  without  a  license. 


A      PARIS, 

Chez  Sebastien  Cramoisy,  EcSebast. 

M  A b r  e-C ramoisy,  Imprimcurs ordinaircs 

duRoy  &rdeIaReine.nfc  S.  lacqucs,. 

aux  Cicogucs. 


M.    DC.     LXIV. 
jiVEC    JPRir/L£G£    DP-    ROT 


I  12 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


This  time  the  Indian  canoes  struck  off  into  Lake  Superior 
instead  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  coasted  that  billowy  inland  sea 
with  its  iron  shore  and  shadowy  forests.  On  the  northwest  side 
of  the  lake,  somewhere  between  Duluth  and  Fort  William,  the 
explorers  joined  the  Crees,  and  proceeded  northwestward  with 
them,  hunting  along  that  Indian  trail  to  become  famous  as  the 
fur  traders'  highway  —  from  Lake  Superior  to  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods.    The  first  white  man's  fort  built  west  of  the  Great  Lakes, 


THE   JESUIT   MAP  OF   LAKE   SUPERIOR 
(From  the  Relation  of  1670-1671) 

the  terrible  famine  that  winter,  and  the  visits  of  the  Sioux — are 
all  a  story  in  themselves.  Spring  found  the  explorers  following 
the  Crees  over  the  height  of  land  from  Lake  Superior  to  Hudson 
Bay.  As  soon  as  the  ice  loosened,  dugouts  were  launched,  and 
the  voyageurs  began  that  hardest  of  all  canoe  trips  in  America, 
through  the  forest  hinterland  of  Ontario.  Here  the  rivers  were 
a  stagnant  marsh,  with  outlet  hidden  by  dankest  forest  growth 
where  the  light  of  the  sun  never  penetrated.  There  the  waters 
swollen  by  spring  thaw  and  broken  by  the  ice  jam  whirled  the 


DISCOVERS  HUDSON   BAY  113 

boats  into  rapids  before  the  paddlers  realized.  There  was  wading 
to  mid-waist  in  ice  water.  There  were  nights  when  camp  was 
made  on  water-soaked  moss.  There  were  days  when  the  windfall 
compelled  the  canoemen  to  take  the  canoes  out  of  the  water 
and  carry  them  half  the  time.  "At  last,"  writes  Radisson,  "we 
came  to  the  sea,  where  we  found  an  old  house  all  demolished 
and  battered  with  bullets.  The  Crees  told  us  about  Europeans 
being  here  ;  and  we  went  from  isle  to  isle  all  that  summer." 
At  this  time  the  canoes  must  have  been  coasting  the  south 
shore  of  James  Bay,  headed  east ;  for  Radisson  presently  ex- 
plains that  they  came  to  a  river,  which  rose  in  a  lake  near  the 
source  of  the  Saguenay  —  namely  Rupert  River.  What  was 
the  old  house  battered  with  bullets  ?  Was  it  Hudson's  winter 
fort  of  1610-1611  ?  The  Indians  of  Rupert  River  to  this  day 
have  legends  of  Hudson  having  come  back  to  his  fort  when  cast 
away  by  the  mutineers. 

The  furs  that  Radisson  and  Groseillers  brought  back  from 
the  north  this  time  were  worth  fabulous  wealth.  The  cargo  saved 
New  France  from  bankruptcy  ;  but  the  explorers  had  defied 
both  Church  and  Governor,  and  all  the  greedy  monopolists  of 
Quebec  fell  on  Radisson  and  Groseillers  with  jealous  fury. 
They  were  fined  $20,000  to  build  a  fort  at  Three  Rivers, 
though  given  permission  to  inscribe  their  coats  of  arms  on  the 
gate.  A  $30,000  fine  went  to  the  public  treasury  of  New 
France,  and  a  tax  of  $70,000  was  imposed  by  the  Farmers  of 
the  Revenue.  Of  the  total  cargo  there  was  left  to  Radisson 
and  Groseillers  only  $20,000. 

Disgusted,  the  two  explorers  personally  appealed  to  the  Court 
of  France  ;  but  there  the  monopolists  were  all-powerful,  and 
justice  was  denied.  They  tried  to  induce  some  of  the  fishing 
fleet  off  Cape  Breton  to  venture  to  the  North  Sea;  but  there 
the  monopolists'  malign  influence  was  again  felt.  The}-  were  ac- 
cused of  having  broken  the  laws  of  Quebec.  Zechariah  Gillam, 
a  sea  captain  of  Boston,  who  chanced  to  be  at  Port  Royal,  offered 
them  his  vessel  for  a  voyage  to    Hudson   Bay;   but   when  the 


ii4 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


doughty  captain  came  to  the  ice-locked  straits,  his  courage 
failed  and  he  refused  to  enter.  Finally,  at  Port  Royal,  with  the 
last  of  their  meager  and  dwindling  capital,  they  hired  two  ships 
for  a  voyage  ;  but  one  was  wrecked  on  Sable  Island  while  fish- 
ing for  supplies,  and  instead  of  sailing  for  Hudson  Bay  in  1665, 
Radisson  and  Groseillers  were  summoned  to  Boston  in  a  law- 
suit over  the  lost  vessel. 

In  Boston  they  met 
commissioners  of  the  Eng- 
lish government  and  were 
invited  to  lay  their  plans 
before  Charles  II,  King  of 
England.  At  last  the  tide 
of  fortune  seemed  to  be 
turning.  Sailing  with  Sir 
George  Carterett,  after 
pirate  raid  and  shipwreck, 
they  reached  London  to 
find  the  plague  raging, 
and  were  ordered  to 
Windsor,  where  Charles 
received  them,  recom- 
mended their  venture  to 
Prince  Rupert,  and  pro- 
vided £2  a  week  each  for 
their  living  expenses. 
From  being  penniless 
outcasts,  Radisson  and  Groseillers  suddenly  wakened  to  find 
themselves  famous.  Groseillers  seems  to  have  kept  in  the  back- 
ground, but  Radisson,  the  younger  man,  enjoyed  the  full  blaze 
of  glory,  was  seen  in  the  King's  box  at  the  theater,  and  was 
presently  paying  furious  court  to  Mistress  Mary  Kirke,  daughter 
of  Sir  John  Kirke,  whose  ancestors  had  captured  Quebec.  What 
with  war  and  the  plague,  it  was  1668  before  the  English  Admi- 
ralty could  loan  the  two  ships  Eaglet  and  Nonsuch  for  a  voyage 
to  Hudson  Bay.    The  expense  was  to  be  defrayed  by  a  band  of 


CHARLES  II 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GREAT  FUR  COMPANY  „r 

friends  known  as  the  "  Gentlemen  Adventurers  of  England  Trad- 
ing to  Hudson  Bay,"  subscribing  so  much  stock  in  cash,  provision, 
and  goods  for  trade.  Radisson's  ship,  the  Eaglet,  was  driven  back,' 
damaged  by  storm  ;  but  the  other,  under  Groseillers,  went  on  to 
Hudson  Bay,  where  the  marks  set  up  on  the  overland  voyage 
were  found  at  Rupert  River,  and  a  small  fort  was  built  for  trade. 
During  the  delay  Radisson  was  not  idle  in  London.  He  wrote 
the  journals  of  his  first  four  voyages.  He  married  Mary  Kirke 
—  some  accounts  say,  eloped  with  her.  With  the  help  of  King 
Charles  and  Prince  Rupert  he  organized  what  is  now  known 
as  the  Hudson's  Bay  Fur  Company  ;  for  when  Groseillers'  ship 
returned  in  the  fall  of  1669,  its  success  in  trade  had  been  so 
great  that  the  Adventurers  at  once  applied  for  a  royal  charter 
of  exclusive  monopoly  in  trade  to  all  the  regions,  land  and  sea, 
rivers  and  territories,  adjoining  Hudson  Bay.  The  monopoly 
of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  to  the  Great  Northwest  was 
granted   by  King  Charles  in  May,   1670. 

Here,  then,  was  the  situation.  England  was  intrenched  south 
of  the  St.  Lawrence.  England  was  taking  armed  possession  of 
all  lands  bordering  on  Hudson  Bay  and  such  other  lands  as  the 
Adventurers  might  find.  Wedged  between  was  New  France 
with  a  population  of  less  than  six  thousand.  If  France  could 
have  foreseen  what  her  injustice  to  two  poor  adventurers  would 
cost  the  nation  in  blood  and  money,  it  would  have  paid  her  to 
pension  Radisson  like  a  prince  of  the  blood  royal. 

Note  to  Chapter  VI.  The  viceroys  of  New  France  were  shifted  so  fre- 
quently that  little  record  remains  of  several  but  their  names.  The  official  list  of 
the  governors  under  the  French  regime  stands  as  follows  : 

Samuel  de  Champlain,  died  at  Quebec,  Christmas,  1635. 

Marc  Antoine  de  Chasteaufort,  pro  tern. 

Charles  Huault  de  Montmagny,  1636. 

Louis  d'Ailleboust  of  the  Montreal  Crusaders,  1648. 

Jean  de  Lauzon,  1651. 

Charles  de  Lauzon-Charny  (son)./;,'  ton. 

Louis  d'Ailleboust,  1657. 

Viscount  d'Argenson,  165S,  a  young  man  who  quarreled  with  Jesuits. 

Viscount  d'Avagour,  1661,  a  bluff  soldier,  who  also  quarreled  with  Jesuits. 

De  Mezy,  1663,  appointed  by  Jesuits'  influence,  but  quarreled  with  them. 


ll6  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Marquis  de  Tracy,  1663,  who  was  viceroy  of  all  French  possessions  in  America, 

and  really  sent  out  to  act  as  general. 
De  Courcelle,  1665,  who  acts  as  governor  under  De  Tracy  and  succeeds  him. 
Frontenac,  1672,  was  recalled  through  influence  of  Jesuits,  whose  interference  he 

would  not  tolerate  in  civil  affairs. 
De   La   Barre,   1682,  an  impotent,  dishonest  old   man,  who   came   to  mend  his 

fortunes. 
De  Brisay  de  Denonville,  16S5. 
Frontenac,  1689. 
De  Calliere,  1699. 
Marquis  de  Vaudreuil,  1703. 
Charles  le  Moyne,  Baron  de  Longeuil,  1725,  son  of  Le  Moyne,  the  famous  fighter 

and  interpreter  of  Montreal ;  brother  of  Le  Moyne  d'Iberville,  the  commander. 
Marquis  de  Beauharnois,  1726. 
Count  de  la  Galissoniere,  1747. 
Marquis  de  la  Jonquiere,  1749. 

Charles  le  Moyne,  Baron  de  Longeuil,  1752,  son  of  former  Governor. 
Duquesne,  1752. 
Marquis  de  Vaudreuil,  1755,  descendant  of  first  Vaudreuil. 


CHAPTER   VII 

FROM  1672  TO  1688 

While  Radisson  and  other  coureurs  of  the  woods  were  raner- 
ing  the  wilds  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Mississippi  and 
from  the  Great  Lakes  to  Hudson  Bay,  changes  were  almost 
revolutionizing  the  little  colony  of  New  France.  No  longer 
was  everything  subservient  to  missions.  When  Marguerite 
Bourgeoys  and  Jeanne  Mance,  of  Ville-Marie  Mission  at  Mon- 
treal, went  home  to  France  to  bring  out  more  colonists  in  1659, 
they  learned  that  the  founder  of  their  mission  —  Dauversiere, 
the  tax  collector  —  had  gone  bankrupt.  Montreal  was  penniless, 
though  sixty  more  men  and  thirty-two  girls  were  accompanying 
the  nuns  out  this  very  year.  The  Sulpician  priests  had  from  the 
first  been  ardent  friends  of  the  Montrealers.  The  priests  of 
St.  Sulpice  now  assumed  charge  of  Montreal.  Though  "God's 
Penny  "  was  still  collected  at  the  fairs  and  market  places  of  Old 
France  for  the  conversion  of  Indians  at  Mont  Royal,  the  fur 
trade  was  rapidly  changing  the  character  of  the  place. 

Afraid  of  the  Iroquois  raiders,  the  tribes  of  the  Up-Country 
now  flocked  to  Montreal  instead  of  Quebec,  where  the  traders 
met  them  annually  at  the  great  Fur  Fairs. 

No  more  picturesque  scene  exists  in  Canada's  past  than  these 
Fur  Fairs.  Down  the  rapids  of  the  Ottawa  and  the  St.  Lawrence 
bounded  the  canoes  of  the  Indian  hunters,  Hurons  and  Potta- 
watomies  from  Lake  Michigan,  Crees  and  Ojibways  from  Lake 
Superior,  Iroquois  and  Eries  and  Neutrals  from  what  is  now 
the  Province  of  Ontario,  the  northern  Indians  in  long  birch 
canoes  light  as  paper,  the  Indians  of  Ontario  in  dugouts  of  oak 
and  walnut.  The  Fur  Fair  usually  took  place  between  June  and 
August ;  and  the  Viceroy,  magnificent  in  red  cloak  faced  with 
velvet  and  ornamented  with  gold  braid,  came  up  from  Quebec 

117 


Il8  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

for  the  occasion  and  occupied  a  chair  of  state  under  a  mar- 
quee erected  near  the  Indian  tents.  Wigwams  then  went  up 
like  mushrooms,  the  Huron  and  Iroquois  tents  of  sewed  bark 
hung  in  the  shape  of  a  square  from  four  poles,  the  tepees  of  the 
Upper  Indians  made  of  birch  and  buffalo  hides,  hung  on  poles 
crisscrossed  at  the  top  to  a  peak,  spreading  in  wide  circle  to  the 
ground.  Usually  the  Fur  Fair  occupied  a  great  common  between 
St.  Paul  Street  and  the  river.  Furs  unpacked,  there  stalked 
among  the  tents  great  sachems  glorious  in  robes  of  painted 
buckskin  garnished  with  wampum,  Indian  children  stark  naked, 
young  braves  flaunting  and  boastful,  wearing  headdresses  with 
strings  of  eagle  quills  reaching  to  the  ground,  each  quill  signify- 
ing an  enemy  taken.  Then  came  "  the  peddlers,"  —  the  fur  mer- 
chants, —  unpacking  their  goods  to  tempt  the  Indians,  men  of  the 
colonial  noblesse  famous  in  history,  the  Forests  and  Le  Chesnays 
and  Le  Bers.  Here,  too,  gorgeous  in  finery,  bristling  with  fire- 
arms, were  the  bushrovers,the  interpreters,  the  French  voyageurs, 
who  had  to  come  out  of  the  wilds  once  every  two  years  to  renew 
their  licenses  to  trade.  There  was  Charles  Le  Moyne,  son  of  an 
innkeeper  of  Dieppe,  who  had  come  to  Montreal  as  interpreter 
and  won  such  wealth  as  trader  that  his  family  became  members 
of  the  French  aristocracy.  Two  of  his  descendants  became  gov- 
ernors of  Canada  ;  and  the  history  of  his  sons  is  the  history  of 
Canada's  most  heroic  age.  There  was  Louis  Jolliet,  who  had 
studied  for  the  Jesuit  priesthood  but  turned  fur  trader  among 
the  tribes  of  Lake  Michigan.  There  was  Daniel  Greysolon 
Duluth,  a  man  of  good  birth,  ample  means,  and  with  the  finest 
house  in  Montreal,  who  had  turned  bushrover,  gathered  round 
him  a  band  of  three  or  four  hundred  lawless,  dare-devil  French 
hunters,  and  now  roamed  the  woods  from  Detroit  halfway  to 
Hudson  Bay,  swaying  the  Indians  in  favor  of  France  and  ruling 
the  wilds,  sole  lord  of  the  wilderness.  There  were  Groseillers  and 
Radisson  and  a  shy  young  man  of  twenty-five  who  had  obtained 
a  seigniory  from  the  Sulpicians  at  Lachine  —  Robert  Cavelier 
de  La  Salle.  Sometimes,  too,  Father  Marquette  came  down  with 
his  Indians  from  the  missions  on  Lake  Superior.    Maisonneuve, 


THE   FUR  FAIRS  OF  MONTREAL 


119 


too,  was  there, grieving,  no  doubt,  to  see  this  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
which  he  had  set  up  on  earth,  becoming  more  and  more  a  king- 
dom of  this  world.  Later,  when  the  Hundred  Associates  lost 
their  charter  and  Canada  became  a  Royal  Province  governed 
directly  by  the  Crown,  Maisonneuve  was  deprived  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  Montreal  and  retired  to  die  in  obscurity  in  Paris. 
Louis  d'Ailleboust,  Governor  of  Montreal  when  Maisonneuve 
is  absent,  Governor  at  Quebec  when  state  necessities  drag  him 
from  religious  devotion,  moves  also  in  the  gay  throng  of  the 


j 

I 


"  l~\  ten  "   0M  '    ..   : 


S* 


J.A^ 


cf 


PLAN  or  MONTREAL 
$  ifl    1672.  i. 


PLAN  OF  MONTREAL  IN  1672 


Fur  Fair.  In  later  days  is  a  famous  character  at  the  Fur  Fairs 
—  La  Motte  Cadillac  of  Detroit,  bushrover  and  gentleman  like 
Duluth,  but  prone  to  break  heads  when  he  comes  to  town 
where   the  wine  is  good. 

Trade  was  regulated  by  royal  license.  Only  twenty-five  canoes 
a  year  were  allowed  to  go  to  the  woods  with  three  men  in  each, 
and  a  license  was  good  for  only  two  years.  Fines,  branding,  the 
galleys  for  life,  death,  were  the  penalties  for  those  who  traded 
without  license  ;  but  that  did  not  prevent  more  than  one  thou- 
sand young  Frenchmen  running  off  to  the  woods  to  live  like 
Indians.    In  fact,  there  was  no  other  way  for  the  youth  of  New 


120  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

France  to  earn  a  living.  Penniless  young  noblemen,  criminals 
escaping  the  law,  the  sons  of  the  poorest,  all  were  on  the  same 
footing  in  the  woods.  He  who  could  persuade  a  merchant  to 
outfit  him  for  trade  disappeared  in  the  wilds  ;  and  if  he  came 
back  at  all,  came  back  with  wealth  of  furs  and  bought  off  punish- 
ment, "  wearing  sword  and  lace  and  swaggering  as  if  he  were  a 
gentleman,"  the  annals  of  the  day  complain  ;  and  a  long  session 
in  the  confessional  box  relieved  the  prodigal's  conscience  from 
the  sins  of  a  life  in  the  woods.  If  my  young  gentleman  were  rich 
enough,  the  past  was  forgotten,  and  he  was  now  on  the  highroad 
to  distinguished  service  and  perhaps  a  title. 

In  the  early  days  a  beaver  skin  could  be  bought  for  a  needle 
or  a  bell  or  a  tin  mirror ;  and  in  spite  of  all  the  priests  could  do 
to  prevent  it,  brandy  played  a  shameful  part  in  the  trade.  In 
vain  the  priests  preached  against  it,  and  the  bishop  thundered 
anathemas.  The  evils  of  the  brandy  traffic  were  apparent  to  all 
— the  Fur  Fairs  became  a  bedlam  of  crime  ;  but  when  the  Gov- 
ernor called  in  all  the  traders  to  confer  on  the  subject,  it  was 
plain  that  if  the  Indians  did  not  obtain  liquor  from  the  French, 
they  would  go  on  down  with  their  furs  to  the  English  of  New 
York,  and  the  French  Governor  was  afraid  to  forbid  the  evil. 

The  Fur  Fair  over,  the  Governor  departed  for  Quebec  ;  the 
Indians,  for  their  own  land  ;  the  bushrovers,  for  their  far  wan- 
derings ;  and  there  settled  over  Montreal  for  another  year 
drowsy  quiet  but  for  the  chapel  bells  of  St.  Sulpice  and  Ville 
Marie  and  Bon  Secours — the  Chapel  of  Ste.  Anne's  Good  Help 
—  built  close  on  the  verge  of  the  river,  that  the  voyageurs  com- 
ing and  going  might  cross  themselves  as  they  passed  her  spire  ; 
drowsy  peace  but  for  the  chapel  chimes  ringing  .  .  .  ringing  .  .  . 
ringing  .  .  .  morning  .  .  .  noon  .  .  .  and  night .  .  .  lilting  and  sing- 
ing and  calling  all  New  France  to  prayers.  As  the  last  canoe 
glided  up  the  river,  and  sunset  silence  fell  on  Montreal,  there 
knelt  before  the  dimly  lighted  altars  of  the  chapels,  shadow 
figures  —  Maisonneuve  praying  for  his  mission;  D'Ailleboust, 
asking  Heaven's  blessing  on  the  new  shrine  clown  at  St.  Anne 
de  Beaupre  near  Quebec,  which  he  had  built  for  the  miraculous 


la  salle's  house  near  Montreal 


•    KITCHEN,    CHATEAU   DE    RAMEZAY,   MONTREAL 


CUSTOMS  OF  PEOPLE  12  I 

healing  of  physical  ills;  Dollier  de  Casson,  priest  of  the  wilds, 
manly  and  portly  and  strong,  wilderness  fighter  for  the  Cross. 
Then  the  organ  swells,  and  the  chant  rolls  out,  and  till  the  next 
Fur  Fair  Montreal  is  again  a  mission. 

When  New  France  becomes  a  Crown  Colony,  the  government 
consists  solely  and  only  of  the  Sovereign  Council,  to  whom  the 
King  transmits  his  will.  This  council  consists  of  the  Governor, 
his  administrative  officer  called  the  "  Intendant,"  the  bishop, 
and  several  of  the  inhabitants  of  New  France  nominated  by  the 
other  members  of  the  council.  Of  elections  there  are  absolutely 
none.  Popular  meetings  are  forbidden.  New  France  is  a  des- 
potism, with  the  Sovereign  Council  representing  the  King. 
Domestic  disputes,  religious  quarrels,  civil  cases,  crimes, — all 
come  before  the  Sovereign  Council.  Clients  could  plead  their 
own  cases  without  a  fee,  or  hire  a  notary.  Cases  are  tried 
by  the  Sovereign  Council.  Laws  are  passed  by  it.  Fines  are 
imposed  and  sentences  pronounced  ;  but  as  the  Sovereign  Coun- 
cil met  only  once  a  week,  the  management  of  affairs  fell  chiefly 
to  the  Intendant,  whose  palace  became  known  as  the  Place  of 
Justice.  Of  systematic  taxation  there  was  none.  One  fourth  of 
all  beaver  went  for  public  revenue.  Part  of  Labrador  was  re- 
served as  the  King's  Domain  for  trading,  and  sometimes  a 
duty  of  ten  per  cent  was  charged  on  liquor  brought  into  the 
colony.  The  stroke  of  the  Sovereign  Council's  pen  could  create 
a  law,  and  the  stroke  of  the  King's  pen  annul  it.  Laws  are 
passed  forbidding  men,  who  are  not  nobles,  assuming  the  title 
of  Esquire  or  Sieur  on  penalty  of  what  would  be  a  $500  fine. 
"Wood  is  not  to  be  piled  on  the  streets."  "Chimneys  are  to  be 
built  large  enough  to  admit  a  chimney  sweep."  "  Only  shingles 
of  oak  and  walnut  may  be  used  in  towns  where  there  is  clanger 
of  fire."  Swearing  is  punished  by  fines,  by  the  disgrace  of 
being  led  through  the  streets  at  the  end  of  a  rope  and  begging 
pardon  on  knees  at  the  church  steps,  by  branding  if  the  offense 
be  repeated.  Murderers  are  punished  by  being  shot,  or  exposed 
in  an  iron  cage  on  the  cliffs  above  the  St.  Lawrence  till  death 


12  2 


CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OE  THE  NORTH 


comes.  No  detail  is  too  small  for  the  Sovereign  Council's  notice. 
In  fact,  a  case  is  on  record  where  a  Mademoiselle  Andre  is  ex- 
pelled from  the  colony  for  flirting  so  outrageously  with  young 
officers  that  she  demoralizes  the  garrison.  Mademoiselle  avoids 
the  punishment  by  bribing  one  of  the  officers  on  the  ship  where 
she  is  placed,  and  escaping  to  land  in  man's  clothing. 

The  people  of  New 
France  were  regulated 
in  every  detail  of  their 
lives  by  the  Church  as 
well  as  the  Sovereign 
Council.  For  trading 
brandy  to  the  Indians, 
Bishop  Laval  thunders 
excommunication  at  de- 
linquents ;  and  Bishop 
St.  Valliere,  his  succes- 
sor, publicly  rebukes 
the  dames  of  New 
France  for  wearing  low- 
necked  dresses,  and 
curling  their  hair,  and 
donning  gay  ribbons  in 
place  of  bonnets.  "  The 
vanity  of  dress  among 
women    becomes    a 

LAVAL  T     i     ,i 

greater   scandal   than 

(After  the  portrait  in  Laval  University,  Quebec)  before/>    he    COmplainS. 

"They  affect  immodest  headdress,  with  heads  uncovered  or 
only  concealed  under  a  collection  of  ribbons,  laces,  curls,  and 
other  vanities." 

The  laws  came  from  the  King  and  Sovereign  Council.  The 
enforcement  of  them  depended  on  the  Intendant.  As  long  as 
he  was  a  man  of  integrity,  New  France  might  live  as  happily 
as  a  family  under  a  despotic  but  wise  father.  It  was  when  the 
Intendant  became  corrupt  that  the  system  fell  to  pieces. 


SHIPLOADS  OF  BRIDES 


123 


Of  all  the  intendants  of  New  France,  one  name  stands  pre- 
eminent, that  of  Jean  Talon,  who  came  to  Canada,  aged  forty, 
in  1665,  at  the  time  the  country  became  a  Crown  Province. 
One  of  eleven  children  of  Irish  origin,  Talon  had  been  educated 
at  the  Jesuit  College  of  Paris,  and  had  served  as  an  intendant 
in  France  before  coming  to  Canada.  Officially  he  was  to  stand 
between  the  King  and  the  colony,  to  transmit  the  commands 
of  one  and  the  wants  of  the  other.  He  was  to  stand  between 
the  Governor  and  the  colony,  to  watch  that  the  Governor  did 
not  overstep  his  authority  and  that  the  colony  obeyed  the  laws. 
He  was  to  stand  between  the  Church  and  the  colony,  to  see 
that  the  Church  did  not  usurp  the  prerogatives  of  the  Governor 
and  that  the  people  were  kept  in  the  path  of  right  living  without 
having  their  natural  liberties  curtailed.  He  was,  in  a  word,  to 
accept  the  thankless  task  of  taking  all  the  cuffs  from  the  King 
and  the  kicks  from  the  colony,  all  the  blame  of  whatever  went 
amiss  and  no  credit  for  what  went  well. 

When  Talon  came  to  Canada  there  were  less  than  two  thou- 
sand people  in  the  colony.  He  wrote  frantically  to  His  Royal 
Master  for  colonists.  "  We  cannot  depeople  France  to  people 
Canada,"  wrote  the  King;  but  from  his  royal  revenue  he  set 
aside  money  yearly  to  send  men  to  Canada  as  soldiers,  women 
as  wives.  In  1671  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  girls  were  sent 
out  to  be  wedded  to  the  French  youth.  A  year  later  came  one 
hundred  and  fifty  more.  Licenses  would  not  be  given  to  the 
wood  rovers  for  the  fur  trade  unless  they  married.  Bachelors 
were  fined  unless  they  quickly  chose  a  wife  from  among  the 
King's  girls.  Promotion  was  withheld  from  the  young  ensigns 
and  cadets  in  the  army  unless  they  found  brides.  Yearly  the 
ships  brought  girls  whom  the  cures  of  France  had  carefully 
selected  in  country  parishes.  Yearly  Talon  gave  a  bounty  to 
the  middle-aged  duenna  who  had  safely  chaperoned  her  charges 
across  seas  to  the  convents  of  Quebec  and  Montreal,  where  the 
bashful  suitors  came  to  make  choice.  "  We  want  country  girls, 
who  can  work,"  wrote  the  Intendant;  and  girls  who  could 
work  the  King  sent,  instructing  Talon  to  mate  as  many  as  he 


124  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

could  to  officers  of  the  Carignan  Regiment,  so  that  the  soldiers 
would  be  likely  to  turn  settlers.  Results  :  by  1674  Canada  had 
a  population  of  six  thousand  seven  hundred  ;  by  1684,  of  nearly 
twelve  thousand,  not  counting  the  one  thousand  bush  lopers 
who  roamed  the  woods  and  married  squaws. 

Between  Acadia  and  Quebec  lay  wilderness.  Jean  Talon 
opened  a  road  connecting  the  two  far-separated  provinces.  The 
Sovereign  Council  had  practically  outlawed  the  bush  lopers.  Talon 
pronounced  trade  free,  and  formed  them  into  companies  of  bush 
fighters  —  defenders  of  the  colony.  Instead  of  being  wild-wood 
bandits,  men  like  Duluth  at  Lake  Superior  and  La  Motte  Cadil- 
lac at  Detroit  became  commanders,  holding  vast  tribes  loyal  to 
France.  For  years  there  had  been  legends  of  mines.  Talon  opened 
mines  at  Gaspe  and  Three  Rivers  and  Cape  Breton.  All  clothing 
had  formerly  been  imported  from  France.  Talon  had  the  inhabit- 
ants taught  —  and  they  badly  needed  it,  for  many  of  their  chil- 
dren ran  naked  as  Indians  —  to  weave  their  own  clothes,  make 
rugs,  tan  leather,  grow  straw  for  hats, — all  of  which  they  do  to 
this  day,  so  that  you  may  enter  a  habitant  house  and  not  find  a 
single  article  except  saints'  images,  a  holy  book,  and  perhaps 
a  fiddle,  which  the  habitant  has  not  himself  made.  "  The  Jesuits 
assume  too  much  authority,"  wrote  the  King.  Talon  lessened 
their  power  by  inviting  the  Recollets  to  come  back  to  Canada 
and  by  encouraging  the  Sulpicians.  Instead  of  outlawing  young 
Frenchmen  for  deserting  to  the  English,  Talon  asked  the  King  to 
grant  titles  of  nobility  to  those  who  were  loyal,  like  the  Godefrois 
and  the  Denis'  and  the  Le  Moynes  and  young  Chouart  Groseillers, 
son  of  Radisson's  brother-in-law,  so  that  there  sprang  up  a  Cana- 
dian noblesse  which  was  as  graceful  with  the  frying  pan  of  a  night 
camp  fire  in  the  woods  as  with  the  steps  of  a  stately  dance  in  the 
governor's  ballroom.  Above  all  did  Talon  encourage  the  bush- 
rovers  in  their  far  wanderings  to  explore  new  lands  for  France. 

New  France  had  not  forgotten  the  Iroquois  treachery  to  the 
French  colony  at  Onondaga.  Iroquois  raid  and  ambuscade  kept 
the  hostility  of  these  sleepless  foes  fresh  in  French  memory. 


THE  IROQUOIS  AND  DE  TRACY  125 

When  Jean  Talon  came  to  Canada  as  intendant,  there  had 
come  as  governor  Courcelle,  with  the  Marquis  de  Tracy  as 
major  general  of  all  the  French  forces  in  America,  —  the  West 
Indies  as  well  as  Canada.  The  Carignan  Regiment  of  soldiers 
seasoned  in  European  campaigns  had  been  sent  to  protect  the 
colonists  from  Indian  raid  ;  and  it  was  determined  to  strike  the 
Iroquois  Confederacy  a  blow  that  would  forever  put  the  fear  of 
the  French  in  their  hearts. 

Richelieu  River  was  still  the  trail  of  the  Mohawk  warrior ; 
and  De  Tracy  sent  his  soldiers  to  build  forts  on  this  stream 
at  Sorel  and  Chambly  —  named  after  officers  of  the  regiment. 
January,  1666,  Courcelle,  the  Governor,  set  out  on  snowshoes  to 
invade  the  Iroquois  Country  with  five  hundred  men,  half  Cana- 
dian bushrovers,  half  regular  soldiers.  By  some  mistake  the 
snow-covered  trail  to  the  Mohawks  was  missed,  the  wrong  road 
followed,  and  the  French  Governor  found  himself  among  the 
Dutch  at  Schenectady.  March  rains  had  set  in.  Through  the 
leafless  forests  in  driving  sleet  and  rain  retreated  the  French. 
Sixty  had  perished  from  exposure  and  disease  before  Courcelle 
led  his  men  back  to  the  Richelieu.  The  Mohawk  warriors 
showed  their  contempt  for  this  kind  of  white-man  warfare  by 
raiding  some  French  hunters  on  Lake  Champlain  and  killing  a 
young  nephew  of  De  Tracy. 

Nevertheless,  on  second  thought,  twenty-four  Indian  deputies 
proceeded  to  Quebec  with  the  surviving  captives  to  sue  for 
peace.  De  Tracy  was  ready  for  them.  Solemnly  the  peace  pipe 
had  been  puffed  and  solemnly  the  peace  powwow  held.  The 
Mohawk  chief  was  received  in  pompous  state  at  the  Governor's 
table.  Heated  with  wine  and  mistaking  French  courtesy  for 
fear,  the  warrior  grew  boastful  at  the  white  chief's  table. 

"This  is  the  hand,"  he  exclaimed,  proudly  stretching  out  his 
right  arm,  "  this  is  the  hand  that  split  the  head  of  your  young 
man,  O  Onontio  !  " 

"Then  by  the  power  of  Heaven,"  thundered  the  Marquis  de 
Tracy,  springing  to  his  feet  ablaze  with  indignation,  "it  is  the 
hand  that  shall  never  split  another  head  !  " 


T26 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


Forthwith  the  body  of  the  great  Mohawk  chief  dangled  a 
scarecrow  to  the  fowls  of  the  air  ;  and  the  other  terrified  depu- 
ties tore  breathlessly  back  for  the  Iroquois  land  with  such  a 
story  as  one  may  guess. 

With  thirteen  hundred  men  and  three  hundred  boats  the 
Marquis  de  Tracy  and  Courcelle  set  out  from  the  St.  Law- 
rence in  October  for  the  Iroquois  cantons.    Charles  Le  Moyne, 


A  MAP  IN  THE   RELATION   OF  1662-1663 

(This  map  includes  Lake  Ontario  and  the  Iroquois  Country.    It  shows  the  relative 

positions  of  the  Five  Nations  and  Fort  d'Orange  (Albany).    It  also  gives 

plans  of  the  forts  on  the  Richelieu  and  shows  their  location) 

the  Montreal  bushrover,  led  six  hundred  wild-wood  followers  in 
their  buckskin  coats  and  beaded  moccasins,  with  hair  flying  to 
the  wind  like  Indians  ;  and  one  hundred  Huron  braves  were  also 
in  line  with  the  Canadians.  The  rest  of  the  forces  were  of  the 
Carignan  Regiment.  Dollier  de  Casson,  the  Sulpician  priest, 
powerful  of  frame  as  De  Tracy  himself,  marched  as  chaplain. 
Never  had  such  an  expedition  been  seen  before  on  the  St. 
Lawrence.  Drums  beat  reveille  at  peep  of  dawn.  Fifes  out- 
shrilled    the   roar  of   rapids,  and   stately  figures  in  gold    braid 


WHO    FIRST   FOUND   ONTARIO?  127 

and  plumed  hats  glided  over  the  waters  of  the  Richelieu  among 
the  painted  forests  of  the  frost-tinted  maples.  Indians  have  a 
way  of  conveying  news  that  modern  trappers  designate  as  "  the 
moccasin  telegram."  "Moccasin  telegram"  now  carried  news 
of  the  coming  army  to  the  Iroquois  villages,  and  the  alarm  ran 
like  wildfire  from  Mohawk  to  Onondaga  and  from  Onondaga  to 
Seneca.  When  the  French  army  struck  up  the  Mohawk  River, 
and  to  beat  of  drum  charged  in  full  fury  out  of  the  rain-dripping 
forests  across  the  stubble  fields  to  attack  the  first  palisaded  vil- 
lage, they  found  it  desolate,  deserted,  silent  as  the  dead,  though 
winter  stores  crammed  the  abandoned  houses  and  wildest  confu- 
sion showed  that  the  warriors  had  fled  in  panic.  So  it  was  with 
the  next  village  and  the  next.  The  Iroquois  had  stampeded  in 
blind  flight,  and  the  only  show  of  opposition  was  a  wild  whoop 
here  and  there  from  ambush.  De  Tracy  took  possession  of  the 
land  for  France,  planted  a  cross,  and  ordered  the  villages  set  on 
fire.    For  a  time,  at  least,  peace  was  assured  with  the  Iroquois. 

Who  first  discovered  the  Province  of  Ontario  ?  Before  Cham- 
plain  had  ascended  the  Ottawa,  or  the  Jesuits  established  their 
missions  south  of  Lake  Huron,  young  men  sent  out  as  wood 
rovers  had  canoed  up  the  Ottawa  and  gone  westward  to  the 
land  of  the  Sweet  Water  Seas.  Was  it  Vignau,  the  romancer, 
or  Nicolet,  the  coureur  de  bois,  or  the  boy  Etienne  Brule,  who 
first  saw  what  has  been  called  the  Garden  of  Canada,  the  rolling 
meadows  and  wooded  hills  that  lie  wedged  in  between  the  Upper 
and  the  Lower  of  the  Great  Lakes  ?  Tradition  says  it  was  Brule  ; 
but  however  that  may  be,  little  was  known  of  what  is  now  On- 
tario except  in  the  region  of  the  old  Jesuit  missions  around 
Georgian  Bay.  It  was  not  even  known  that  Michigan  and 
Huron  were  two  lakes.  The  Sulpicians  of  Montreal  had  a  mis- 
sion at  the  Bay  of  Quinte  on  Lake  Ontario,  and  the  south 
shore  of  the  lake,  where  it  touched  on  Iroquois  territory,  was 
known  to  the  Jesuits ;  but  from  Quinte  Bay  to  Detroit  — a  dis- 
tance equal  to  that  from  New  York  to  Chicago,  or  London  to 
Italy  —  was  an  unknown  world. 


128  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

But  to  return  to  the  explorations  which  Jean  Talon,  the 
Intendant,  had   set  in  motion  — 

When  Dollier  de  Casson,  the  soldier  who  had  become  Sulpician 
priest,  returned  from  the  campaign  against  the  Iroquois,  he  had 
been  sent  as  a  missionary  to  the  Nipissing  Country.  There  he 
heard  among  the  Indians  of  a  shorter  route  to  the  Great  River 
of  the  West  —  the  Mississippi  —  than  by  the  Ottawa  and  Sault 
Ste.  Marie.  The  Indians  told  him  if  he  would  ascend  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  Lake  Ontario  and  Lake  Erie,  he  could  portage 
overland  to  the  Beautiful  River,  —  Ohio,  — ■  which  would  carry 
him  down  to  the  Mississippi. 

The  Sulpicians  had  been  encouraged  by  Talon  in  order  to 
eclipse  and  hold  in  check  the  Jesuits.  They  were  eager  to  send 
their  missionaries  to  the  new  realm  of  this  Great  River,  and 
hurried  Dollier  de  Casson  down  to  Quebec  to  obtain  Intendant 
Talon's  permission. 

There,  curiously  enough,  Dollier  de  Casson  met  Cavalier  de 
La  Salle,  the  shy  young  seigneur  of  La  Chine,  intent  on  almost 
the  same  aim,  —  to  explore  the  Great  River.  Where  the  Sulpicians 
had  granted  him  his  seigniory  above  Montreal  he  had  built  a 
fort,  which  soon  won  the  nickname  of  La  Chine,  —  China,  —  be- 
cause its  young  master  was  continually  entertaining  Iroquois 
Indians  within  the  walls,  to  question  them  of  the  Great  River, 
which  might  lead   to  China. 

Governor  Courcelle  and  Intendant  Talon  ordered  the  priest 
and  young  seigneur  to  set  out  together  on  their  explorations. 
The  Sulpicians  were  to  bear  all  expenses,  buying  back  La  Salle's 
lands  to  enable  him  to  outfit  canoes  with  the  money.  Father 
Galinee,  who  understood  map  making,  accompanied  Dollier  de 
Casson,  and  the  expedition  of  seven  birch  canoes,  with  three 
white  men  in  each,  and  two  dugouts  with  Seneca  Indians,  who 
had  been  visiting  La  Salle,  set  out  from  Montreal  on  July  6, 
1669.  Not  a  leader  in  the  party  was  over  thirty-five  years  of 
age.  Dollier  de  Casson,  the  big  priest,  was  only  thirty-three  and 
La  Salle  barely  twenty-six.  Corn  meal  was  carried  as  food. 
For   the   rest,   they  were    to  depend  on   chance    shots.     With 


THROUGH  WESTERN  ONTARIO 


129 


numerous  portages,  keeping  to  the  south  shore  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  because  that  was  best  known  to  the  Seneca  guides, 
the  canoes  passed  up  Lake  St.  Louis  and  Lake  St.  Francis  and 
glided  through  the  sylvan  fairyland  of  the  Thousand  Islands, 
coming  out  in  August  on  Lake  Ontario,  "which,"  says  Galinee, 
"  appeared  to  us  like  a  great  sea."  Striking  south,  they  appealed 
to  the  Seneca  Iroquois  for  guides  to  the  Ohio,  but  the  Senecas 
were  so  intent  on  torturing  some  prisoners  recently  captured, 


galinee's  map  of  the  great  lakes,  1669 

(The  next  oldest  chart  to  that  of  Champlain) 

that  they  paid  no  heed  to  the  appeal.  A  month  was  wasted, 
and  the  white  men  proceeded  with  Indian  slaves  for  guides,  still 
along  the  south  shore  of  the  lake. 

At  the  mouth  of  Niagara  River  they  could  hear  the  far  roar 
of  the  famous  falls,  which  Indian  legend  said  "  fell  over  rocks 
twice  the  height  of  the  highest  pine  tree."  The  turbulent  tor- 
rent of  the  river  could  not  be  breasted,  so  they  did  not  see  the 
falls,  but  rounded  on  up  Lake  Ontario  to  the  region  now  near 
the  city  of  Hamilton.  Here  they  had  prepared  to  portage  over- 
land to  some  stream  that  would  bring  them  clown  to  Lake  Erie, 
when,  to  their  amazement,  they  learned  from  a  passing  Indian 
camp  that  two  Frenchmen  were  on  their  way  down  this  very 
lake  from  searching  copper  mines  on  Lake  Superior. 


130  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

The  two  Frenchmen  were  Louis  Jolliet,  yet  in  his  early 
twenties,  to  become  famous  as  an  explorer  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  one  Monsieur  Jean  Pere,  soldier  of  fortune,  who  was  to  set 
France  and  England  by  the  ears  on  Hudson  Bay.  September  24, 
as  La  Salle  and  Dollier  were  dragging  their  canoes  through  the 
autumn-colored  sumacs  of  the  swamp,  there  plunged  from  among 
the  russet  undergrowth  the  two  wanderers  from  the  north,  — 
Jolliet  and  Pere,  dumb  with  amazement  to  meet  a  score  of  men 
toiling  through  this  tenantless  wilderness.  The  two  parties  fell 
on  each  other's  necks  with  delight  and  camped  together.  Jolliet 
told  a  story  that  set  the  missionaries'  zeal  on  fire  and  inflamed 
La  Salle  with  mad  eagerness  to  pass  on  to  the  goal  of  his  dis- 
coveries. Jolliet  and  Pere  had  not  found  the  copper  mine  for 
Talon  on  Lake  Superior,  but  they  had  learned  two  important 
secrets  from  the  Indians.  First,  if  Iroquois  blocked  the  way  up 
the  Ottawa,  there  was  clear,  easy  water  way  down  to  Quebec  by 
Lake  Huron  and  Lake  Ste.  Claire  and  Lake  Erie.  Jolliet's  guide 
had  brought  them  down  this  way,  first  of  white  men  to  traverse 
the  Great  Lakes,  only  leaving  them  as  they  reached  Lake  Erie 
and  advising  them  to  portage  across  up  Grand  River  to  avoid 
Niagara  Falls.  Second,  the  Indians  told  him  the  Ohio  could 
be  reached  by  way  of  Lake   Erie. 

Sitting  round  the  camp  fires  near  what  is  now  Port  Stanley, 
La  Salle  secretly  resolved  to  go  on  down  to  Quebec  with  Jolliet 
and  rearrange  his  plans  independent  of  the  missionaries.  The 
portaging  through  swamps  had  affected  La  Salle's  health,  and 
he  probably  judged  he  could  make  quicker  time  unaccompanied 
by  missionaries.  As  for  Galinee  and  Dollier,  when  they  knelt 
in  prayer  that  night,  they  fervently  besought  Heaven  to  let  them 
carry  the  Gospel  of  truth  to  those  benighted  heathen  west  of 
Lake  Michigan,  of  whom  Jolliet  told.  Dollier  de  Casson  sent  a 
letter  by  Jolliet  to  Montreal,  begging  the  Sulpicians  to  establish 
a  mission  near  what  is  now  Toronto.  Early  next  morning  an 
altar  was  laid  on  the  propped  paddles  of  the  canoes  and  solemn 
service  held.  La  Salle  and  his  four  canoes  went  back  to  Montreal 
with  Jolliet  and  Pere ;  Dollier  and  Galinee  coasted  along  the 
shores  of  Lake  Erie  westward. 


UP  THE  GREAT   LAKES 


131 


It  was  October.  The  forests  were  leafless,  the  weather  damp, 
the  lake  too  stormy  for  the  frail  canoes.  As  game  was  plentiful, 
the  priests  decided  to  winter  on  a  creek  near  Port  Dover.  Here 
log  houses  were  knocked  up,  and  the  servants  dispersed  moose 
hunting  for  winter  supplies.  Then  followed  the  most  beautiful 
season  of  the  year  in  the  peninsula  of  Ontario,  Indian  summer, 
dreamy  warm  days  after  the  first  cold,  filling  the  forest  with  a 
shimmer  of  golden  light,  the  hills  with  heat  haze,  while  the  air 
was  odorous  with  smells  of  nuts  and  dried  leaves  and  grapes 
hanging  thick  from  wild  vines.  "  It  was,"  writes  Galinee, 
"  simply  an  Earthly  Paradise,  the  most  beautiful  region  that 
ever  I  have  seen  in  my  life,  with  open  woods  and  meadows  and 
rivers  and  game  in  plenty."  In  this  Earthly  Paradise  the  priests 
passed  the  winter,  holding  services  three  times  a  week  —  "a 
winter  that  ought  to  be  worth  ten  years  of  any  other  kind  of 
life  "  Dollier  calculated,  counting  up  masses  and  vespers  and 
matins.  Sometimes  when  the  snow  lay  deep  and  the  weird 
voices  of  the  wind  hallooed  with  bugle  sound  through  the 
lonely  forest,  the  priests  listening  inside  fancied  that  they 
heard  "the  hunting  of  Arthur," —unearthly  huntsmen  cours- 
ing the  air  after  unearthly  game. 

March  23  (Sunday),  1670,  the  company  paraded  clown  to  Lake 
Erie  from  their  sheltered  quarters,  and,  erecting  a  cross,  took 
possession  of  this  land  for  France.  Then  they  launched  their 
boats  to  ascend  the  other  Sweet  Water  Seas.  The  preceding 
autumn  the  priests  had  lost  some  of  their  baggage,  and  now,  in 
camp  near  Point  Pelee,  a  sweeping  wave  carried  off  the  packs 
in  which  were  all  the  holy  vessels  and  equipments  for  the  mis- 
sion chapel.  They  decided  to  go  back  to  Montreal  by  way  of 
Sault  Ste.  Marie,  and  ascended  to  Lake  Ste.  Claire.  Game  had 
been  scarce  for  some  days,  the  weather  tempestuous,  and  now 
the  priests  thought  they  had  found  the  cause.  On  one  of  the 
rocks  of  Lake  Ste.  Claire  was  a  stone,  to  which  the  Indians  of- 
fered sacrifices  for  safe  passage  on  the  lakes.  To  the  priests 
the  rude  drawing  of  a  face  seemed  graven  images  of  paganism, 
—  signs  of  Satan,  who  had  baffled  their  hunting  and  caused  loss 


132  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

of  their  packs.  "  I  consecrated  one  of  my  axes  to  break  this  god 
of  stone,  and,  having  yoked  our  canoes  abreast,  we  carried  the 
largest  pieces  to  the  middle  of  the  river  and  cast  them  in.  God 
immediately  rewarded  us,  for  we  killed  a  deer."  Following  the 
east  shore  of  Lake  Huron,  the  priests  came,  on  May  25,  to  Sault 
Ste.  Marie,  where  the  Jesuits  Dablon  and  Marquette  had  a  mis- 
sion. Three  days  late,  they  embarked  by  way  of  the  Ottawa  for 
Montreal,  where  they  arrived  on  June  18,  1670. 

Meanwhile,  what  had  become  of  Jolliet  and  Pere  and  La  Salle  ? 

They  have  no  sooner  reached  Quebec  with  their  report  than 
Talon  orders  St.  Lusson  to  go  north  and  take  possession  at  Sault 
Ste.  Marie  of  all  these  unknown  lands  for  France.  Jolliet  accom- 
panies St.  Lusson.  Nicholas  Perrot,  a  famous  bushrover,  goes 
along  to  summon  the  Indians,  and  the  ceremony  takes  place  on 
June  14,  167 1,  in  the  presence  of  the  Jesuits  at  the  Sault,  by 
which  the  King  of  France  is  pronounced  lord  paramount  of  all 
these  regions. 

When  Jolliet  comes  down  again  to  Quebec,  he  finds  Count 
Frontenac  has  come  as  governor,  and  Jean  Talon,  the  Intendant, 
is  sailing  for  France.  Before  leaving,  Talon  has  recommended 
Jolliet  as  a  fit  man  to  explore  the  Great  River  of  the  West. 
With  him  is  commissioned  Jacques  Marquette,  the  Jesuit,  who 
has  labored  among  the  Indians  west  of  Lake  Superior.  The  two 
men  set  out  in  birch  canoes,  with  smoked  meat  for  provisions, 
from  Michilimackinac  mission,  May  17,  1673,  for  Green  Bay, 
Lake  Michigan.  Ascending  Fox  River  on  June  17,  they  induce 
the  Mascoutin  Indians,  who  had  years  ago  conducted  Radisson 
by  this  same  route,  to  pilot  them  across  the  portage  to  the 
headwaters  of  the  Wisconsin  River. 

Their  way  lies  directly  across  that  wooded  lake  region,  which 
has  in  our  generation  become  the  resort  first  of  the  lumberman, 
then  of  the  tourist,  —  a  rolling,  wooded  region  of  rare  sylvan 
beauty,  park -like  forests  interspersed  with  sky-colored  lakes.  Six 
weeks  from  the  time  they  had  left  the  Sault,  Wisconsin  River 
carried   their  canoe  out  on  the  swift  eddies  of  a  mighty  river 


MARQUETTE  AND  JOLLIET  133 

flowing  south,  —  the  Mississippi.    For  the  first  time  the  boat  of 
a  Canadian  voyageur  glided  down  its  waters. 

Each  night  as  the  explorers  landed  to  sleep  under  the  stars, 
the  tilted  canoe  inverted  with  end  on  a  log  as  roof  in  case  of 
rain,  Marquette  fell  to  knees  and  invoked  the  Virgin's  aid  on 
the  expedition ;  and  each  morning  as  Jolliet  launched  the  boat 
out  on  the  waters  through  the  early  mist,  he  headed  closely 
along  shore  on  the  watch  for  sign  or  footprint  of   Indian. 

The  river  gathered  volume  as  it  rolled  southward,  carving  the 
clay  cliffs  of  its  banks  in  a  thousand  fantastic  forms.  Where  the 
bank  was  broken,  the  prairies  were  seen  in  heaving  seas  of  grass 
billowing  to  the  wind  like  water,  herds  of  countless  buffalo  pas- 
turing knee-deep.  To  Marquette  and  Jolliet,  burning  with  en- 
thusiasm, it  seemed  as  if  they  were  finding  a  new  world  for 
France  half  as  large  as  all  Europe.  For  two  weeks  not  a  sail, 
not  a  canoe,  not  a  soul  did  they  see.  Then  the  river  carried 
them  into  the  country  of  the  Illinois,  past  Illinois  Indians  who 
wore  French  clothing,  and  pictured  rocks  where  the  Indians  had 
painted  their  sign  language.  There  was  no  doubt  now  in  the 
explorers'  minds,  —  the  Mississippi  did  not  lead  to  China  but 
emptied  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  A  furious  torrent  of  boiling 
muddy  water  pouring  in  on  the  right  forewarned  the  Missouri ; 
and  in  a  few  more  days  they  passed  on  the  left  the  clear  current 
of  Beautiful  River,  —  the  Ohio. 

It  was  now  midsummer.  The  heat  was  heavy  and  humid. 
Marquette's  health  began  to  suffer,  and  the  two  explorers  spread 
an  awning  of  sailcloth  above  the  canoe  as  they  glided  with  the 
current.  Towards  the  Arkansas,  Indians  appeared  on  the  banks, 
brandishing  weapons  of  Spanish  make.  Though  Jolliet,  with  a 
peace  pipe  from  the  Illinois  Indians,  succeeded  in  reassuring  the 
hostiles,  it  was  unsafe  to  go  farther  south.  They  had  established 
the  fact,  —  the  Mississippi  emptied  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,— 
and  on  July  17  turned  back.  It  was  harder  going  against  stream, 
which  did  not  mend  Marquette's  health  ;  so  when  the  Illinois 
Indians  offered  to  show  them  a  shorter  way  to  Lake  Michigan, 
they  followed  up  Illinois  River  and  crossed  the  Chicago  portage 


134 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


to  Lake  Michigan.  Jolliet  went  on  down  to  Quebec  with  his 
report.  Marquette  remained  half  ill  to  establish  missions  in 
Michigan.  Here,  traveling  with  his  Indians  in  1675,  the  priest 
died  of  the  malady  contracted  in  the  Mississippi  heat,  and  was 
buried  in  a  lonely  grave  of  the  wildwood  wilderness  where  he 
had  wandered.  Louis  Jolliet  married  and  settled  down  on  his 
seigniory  of  Anticosti  Island. 

Though  he  had  as  yet  little  to  show  for  the  La  Chine  estate, 
which  he  had  sacrificed,  La  Salle  had  not  been  idle,  but  was  busy 
pushing  French  dominion  by  another  route  to  the  Mississippi. 

Count  Frontenac  had  come  to  New  France  as  all  the  viceroys 
came — penniless,  to  mend  his  fortunes;  and  as  the  salary  of 
the  Governor  did  not  exceed  $3000  a  year,  the  only  way  to 
wealth  was  by  the  fur  trade  ;  but  which  way  to  look  for  fur 
trade  !  Hudson  Bay,  thanks  to  Radisson,  was  in  the  hands  of 
England.  Taudoussac  was  farmed  out  to  the  King.  The  mer- 
chants of  Quebec  and  Three  Rivers  and  Montreal  absorbed  all 
the  furs  of  the  tribes  from  the  Ottawa  ;  and  New  England  drained 
the  Iroquois  land.  There  remained  but  one  avenue  of  new  trade, 
and  that  was  west  of  the  Lakes,  where  Jolliet  had  been. 

Taking  only  La  Salle  into  his  confidence,  Frontenac  issued  a 
royal  mandate  commanding  all  the  officers  and  people  of  New 
France  to  contribute  a  quota  of  men  for  the  establishment  of  a 
fort  on  Lake  Ontario.  By  June  28,  1673,  the  same  year  that 
Jolliet  had  been  dispatched  for  the  Mississippi,  there  had  gathered 
at  La  Chine,  La  Salle's  old  seigniory  near  Montreal,  four  hundred 
armed  men  and  one  hundred  and  twenty  canoes,  which  Frontenac 
ordered  painted  gaudily  in  red  and  blue.  With  these  the  Gov- 
ernor moved  in  stately  array  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  setting  the 
leafy  avenues  of  the  Thousand  Islands  ringing  with  trumpet  and 
bugle,  and  sweeping  across  Lake  Ontario  in  martial  lines  to  the 
measured  stroke  of  a  hundred  paddles. 

Long  since,  La  Salle's  scouts  had  scurried  from  canton  to 
canton,  rallying  the  Iroquois  to  the  council  of  great  "  Onontio." 
At  break  of  day,  July  13,  while  the  sunrise  was  just  bursting  up 


FRONTENAC  AND   LA  SALLE 


135 


over  the  lake,  Frontenac,  with  soldiers  drawn  up  under  arms, 
himself  in  velvet  cloak  laced  with  gold  braid,  met  the  chiefs  of 
the  Iroquois  Confederacy  at  the  place  to  be  known  for  years  as 
Fort  Frontenac,  now  known  as  Kingston,  a  quiet  little  city  at 
the  entrance  of  Lake  Ontario  on  the  north  shore. 

Ostensibly  the  powwow  was  to  maintain  peace.    In  reality, 
it  was  to  attract  the  Iroquois,  and  all  the  tribes  with  whom  they 


ROBERT   DE   LA  SALLE 

traded,  away  from  the  English,  clown  to  Frontenac's  new  fort  with 
their  furs.  It  is  a  question  if  all  the  military  pomp  deceived  a 
living  soul.  Before  the  Governor  had  set  his  sappers  to  work 
on  the  foundations  of  a  fort,  the  merchants  of  Montreal  —  the 
Le  Bers  and  Le  Moynes  and  Le  Chesnayes  and  Le  Forests  — 
were  furious  with  jealousy.  Undoubtedly  Fort  Frontenac  would 
be  the  most  valuable  fur  post  in  America. 


136  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Determined  to  have  the  support  of  the  Court,  where  his  wife 
was  in  high  favor,  Count  Frontenac  dispatched  La  Salle  to 
France  in  1674  with  letters  of  strongest  recommendation, 
which,  no  doubt,  Jean  Talon,  the  former  Intendant,  indorsed  on 
the  spot.  La  Salle's  case  was  a  strong  one.  He  was  to  offer  to 
found  a  line  of  forts  establishing  French  dominion  from  Lake 
Ontario  to  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  which  Jolliet  had  just 


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OLD   PLAN   OF   FORT   FRONTENAC 

explored.  In  return,  he  asked  for  patent  of  nobility  and  the 
grant  of  a  seigniory  at  Fort  Frontenac  ;  in  other  words,  the 
monopoly  of  the  furs  there,  which  would  easily  clear  him 
$20,000  a  year.  It  has  never  been  proved,  but  one  may  sus- 
pect that  his  profits  were  to  be  divided  with  Count  Frontenac. 
Both  requests  were  at  once  granted  ;  and  La  Salle  came  back 
to  a  hornet's  nest  of  enmity  in  Canada.  Space  forbids  to  tell 
of  the  means  taken  to  defeat  him  ;  for,  by  promising  to  support 
Recollet  friars  at  his  fort  instead  of  Jesuits,  La  Salle  had  added 


LA  SALLE  ROUSES  ENEMIES 


*37 


to  the  enmity  of  the  merchants,  the  hatred  of  the  Jesuits. 
Poison  was  put  in  his  food.  Iroquois  were  stirred  up  to  hostility 
against  him. 

Meanwhile  no  enmity  checks  his  ardor.  He  has  replaced 
the  wooden  walls  of  Fort  Frontenac  with  stone,  mounted  ten 
cannon,  manned  the  fort  with  twenty  soldiers,  maintained  more 
than  forty  workmen,  cleared  one  hundred  acres  for  crops,  and 
in  1677  is  off  again  for  France  to  ask  permission  to  build  another 
fort  above  Niagara.  This  time,  when  La  Salle  comes  out,  he  is 
accompanied  by  a  man  famous  in  American  annals,  a  soldier  of 
fortune  from  Italy,  cousin  of  Duluth  the  bushrover,  one  Henry 
Tonty,  a  man  with  a  copper  hand,  his  arm  having  been  shattered 
in  war,  who  presently  comes  to  have  repute  among  the  Indians 
as  a  great  "  medicine  man,"  because  blows  struck  by  that  metal 
hand  have  a  way  of  being  effective.  By  1678  the  fort  is  built 
above  Niagara.  By  1679  a  vessel  of  forty-five  tons  and  ten 
cannon  is  launched  on  Lake  Erie,  the  Griffon,  the  first  vessel 
to  plow  the  waters  of  the  Great  Lakes.  As  she  slides  off  her 
skids,  August  17,  to  go  up  to  Michilimackinac  for  a  cargo  of  furs, 
Tc  Deum  is  chanted  from  the  new  fort,  and  Louis  Hennepin,  the 
Dutch  friar,  standing  on  deck  in  full  vestments,  asks  Heaven's 
blessing  on  the  ship's  venture. 

Scant  is  the  courtesy  of  the  Michilimackinac  traders  as  the 
Griffon" s  guns  roar  salute  to  the  fort.  Cold  is  the  welcome  of 
the  Jesuits  as  La  Salle  enters  their  chapel  dressed  in  scarlet 
mantle  trimmed  with  gold.  And  to  be  frank,  though  La  Salle 
was  backed  by  the  King,  he  had  no  right  to  trade  at  Michilimacki- 
nac, for  his  monopoly  explicitly  states  he  shall  not  interfere  with 
the  trade  of  the  north,  but  barter  only  with  the  tribes  towards 
the  Illinois.  Never  mind  !  he  loads  his  ships  to  the  water  line 
with  furs  to  pay  his  increasing  debts,  and  sends  the  ship 
on  down  to  Niagara  with  the  cargo,  while  he  and  Tonty,  with 
different  parties,  proceed  to  the  south  end  of  Lake  Michigan  to 
cross  the  Chicago  portage  leading  to  the  Mississippi.  Did  the 
jealous  traders  bribe  the  pilot  to  sink  the  ship  to  bottom  ?  Who 
knows  ?    Certain  it  is  when  Tonty  and  La  Salle  went  down  the 


n8 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


Illinois  early  in  the  new  year  of  1680,  news  of  disasters  came 
thick  and  fast.  The  Griffon  had  sunk  with  all  her  cargo.  The 
ship  from  France  with  the  year's  supplies  for  La  Salle  at  Fort 
Frontenac  had  been  wrecked  at  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence  ; 
and  worse  than  these  losses,  which  meant  financial  ruin,  here 
among  the  Illinois  Indians  were  Mascoutin  Indian  spies  bribed 
to  stir  up  trouble  for  La  Salle.  Small  wonder  that  he  named 
the  fort  built  here  Fort  Crevecceur,  —  Fort  Broken  Heart. 


THE   BUILDING   OF  THE    GRIFFO.x 
(After  the  engraving  in  Father  Hennepin's  "  Nouvelle  Decouverte,"  Amsterdam,  1704) 

If  La  Salle  had  been  fur  trader  only,  as  his  enemies  averred, 
and  not  patriot,  one  wonders  why  he  did  not  sit  still  in  his  fort 
at  Frontenec  and  draw  his  profits  of  $20,000  a  year,  instead  of 
risking  loss  and  poison  and  ruin  and  calumny  and  death  by 
chasing  the  phantom  of  his  great  desire  to  found  a  New  France 
on  the  Mississippi. 

Never  pausing  to  repine,  he  orders  Hennepin,  the  friar,  to 
take  two  voyageurs  and  descend  Illinois  River  as  far  as  the 
Mississippi.    Tonty  lie  leaves  in  charge  of  the  Illinois  fort.     lie 


LA  SALLE  DESCENDS  THE  MISSISSIPPI  139 

himself  proceeds  overland  the  width  of  half  a  continent,  to  Fort 
Frontenac  and  Montreal. 

Friar  Hennepin's  adventures  have  been  told  in  his  own  book 
of  marvels,  half  truth,  half  lies.  Jolliet,  it  will  be  remembered, 
had  explored  the  Great  River  south  of  the  Wisconsin.  Henne- 
pin struck  up  from  the  mouth  of  the  Illinois,  to  explore  north, 
and  he  found  enough  adventure  to  satisfy  his  marvel-loving 
soul.  The  Sioux  captured  him  somewhere  near  the  Wisconsin. 
In  the  wanderings  of  his  captivity  he  went  as  far  north  as  the 
Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  the  site  of  Minnesota's  Twin  Cities, 
and  he  finally  fell  in  with  a  band  of  Duluth's  bushrovers  from 
Kaministiquia  (modern  Fort  William),  Lake  Superior. 

The  rest  of  the  story  of  La  Salle  on  the  Mississippi  is  more 
the  history  of  the  United  States  than  of  Canada,  and  must  be 
given  in  few  words. 

When  La  Salle  returned  from  interviewing  his  creditors  on 
the  St.  Lawrence,  he  found  the  Illinois  Indians  dispersed  by 
hostile  Iroquois  whom  his  enemies  had  hounded  on.  Fort  Creve- 
cceur  had  been  destroyed  and  plundered  by  mutineers  among 
his  own  men.  Only  Tonty  and  two  or  three  others  had  remained 
faithful,  and  they  had  fled  for  their  lives  to  Lake  Michigan.  Not 
knowing  where  Tonty  had  taken  refuge,  La  Salle  pushed  on  clown 
the  Illinois  River,  and  for  the  first  time  beheld  the  Mississippi, 
the  goal  of  all  his  dreams ;  but  anxiety  for  his  lost  men  robbed  the 
event  of  all  jubilation.  Once  more  united  with  Tonty  at  Michi- 
limackinac,  La  Salle  returned  dauntlessly  to  the  Illinois.  Late 
in  the  fall  of  1681  he  set  out  with  eighteen  Indians  and  twenty 
Frenchmen  from  Lake  Michigan  for  the  Illinois.  February  of 
1682  saw  the  canoes  floating  down  the  winter-swollen  current 
of  the  Illinois  River  for  the  Mississippi,  which  was  reached  on 
the  6th.  A  week  later  the  river  had  cleared  of  ice,  and  the 
voyageurs  were  camped  amid  the  dense  forests  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Missouri.  The  weather  became  warmer.  Trees  were  don- 
ning their  bridal  attire  of  spring  and  the  air  was  heavy  with  the 
odor  of  blossoms.    Instead  of  high  cliffs,   carved    fantastic    by 


140  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

the  waters,  came  low-lying  swamps,  full  of  reeds,  through  which 
the  canoes  glided  and  lost  themselves.  Camp  after  camp  of 
strange  Indian  tribes  they  visited,  till  finally  they  came  to 
villages  where  the  Indians  were  worshipers  of  the  sun  and 
wore  clothing  of  Spanish  make.  By  these  signs  La  Salle 
guessed  he  was  nearing  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Fog  lay  longer  on 
the  river  of  mornings  now.  Ground  was  lower.  They  were 
nearing  the  sea.  April  6  the  river  seemed  to  split  into  three 
channels.  Different  canoes  followed  each  channel.  The  muddy 
river  water  became  salty.  Then  the  blue  sky  line  opened  to  the 
fore  through  the  leafy  vista  of  the  forest-grown  banks.  Another 
paddle  stroke,  and  the  canoes  shot  out  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
—  La  Salle  erect  and  silent  and  stern  as  was  his  wont.  April  9, 
1682,  a  cross  is  planted  with  claim  to  this  domain  for  France. 
To  fire  of  musketry  and  chant  of  Te  Deum  a  new  empire  is 
created  for  King  Louis  of  France.    Louisiana  is  its  name. 

Take  a  map  of  North  America.  Look  at  it.  What  had  the 
pathfinders  of  New  France  accomplished  ?  Draw  a  line  from 
Cape  Breton  to  James  Bay,  from  James  Bay  down  the  Missis- 
sippi to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  across  to 
Cape  Breton.  Inside  the  triangle  lies  the  French  empire  of  the 
New  World, — in  area  the  size  of  half  Europe.  That  had  the 
pathfinders  accomplished  for  France. 

La  Salle  was  too  ill  to  proceed  at  once  from  the  Mississippi 
to  Quebec.  As  long  as  Frontenac  remained  governor,  La  Salle 
could  rely  on  his  hungry  creditors  and  vicious  enemies  —  now 
eager  as  wolves  to  confiscate  his  furs  and  seize  his  seigniory  at 
Fort  Frontenac  —  being  restrained  by  the  strong  hand  of  the 
Viceroy  ;  but  while  La  Salle  lay  ill  at  the  Illinois  fort,  Fron- 
tenac was  succeeded  by  La  Barre  as  viceroy ;  and  the  new 
Governor  was  a  weak,  avaricious  old  man,  ready  to  believe  any 
evil  tale  carried  to  his  ears.  He  at  once  sided  with  La  Salle's 
enemies,  and  wrote  the  French  King  that  the  explorer's  "head 
was  turned";  that  La  Salle  "  accomplisJied  nothings  but  spent 
his  life  leading  bandits  through  the  forests,  pillaging  Indians ; 


DEATH   OF  LA  SALLE 


141 


that  all  the  story  of  discovering  the  Mississippi  zuas  a  fabrica- 
tion." When  La  Salle  came  from  the  wilderness  he  found  him- 
self a  ruined  man.  Fort  Frontenac  had  been  seized  by  his 
enemies.  Supplies  for  the  Mississippi  had  been  stopped,  and 
officers  were  on  their  way  to  seize  the  forts  there. 

Leaving  Tonty  in  charge  of  his  interests,  La  Salle  sailed  for 
France  where  he  had  a  strong  friend  at  court  in  Frontenac.  As 
it  happened,  Spain  and  France  were  playing  at  the  game  of 
checkmating  each  other;  and  it  pleased  the  French  King  to 
restore  La  Salle's  forts  and  to  give  the  Canadian  explorer  four 
ships  to  colonize  the  Mississippi  by  way  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
This  was  to  oust  Spain  from  her  ancient  claim  on  the  gulf ;  but 
Beaujeu,  the  naval  commander  of  the  expedition,  was  not  in 
sympathy  with  La  Salle.  Beaujeu  was  a  noble  by  birth  ;  La 
Salle,  only  a  noble  of  the  merchant  classes.  The  two  bickered 
and  quarreled  from  the  first.  By  some  blunder,  when  the  ships 
reached  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  laden  with  colonists,  in  December 
of  1684,  they  missed  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  and  anchored 
off  Texas.  The  main  ship  sailed  back  to  France.  Two  others 
were  wrecked,  and  La  Salle  in  desperation,  after  several  trips 
seeking  the  Mississippi,  resolved  to  go  overland  by  way  of  the 
Mississippi  valley  and  the  Illinois  to  obtain  aid  in  Canada  for 
his  colonists.  All  the  world  knows  what  happened.  Near  Trinity 
River  in  Texas  some  of  his  men  mutinied.  Early  in  the  morn- 
ing of  the  19th  of  March,  1687,  La  Salle  left  camp  with  a  friar 
and  Indian  to  ascertain  what  was  delaying  the  plotters,  who 
had  not  returned  from  the  hunt.  Suddenly  La  Salle  seemed 
overwhelmed  by  a  great  sadness.  He  spoke  of  death.  A  moment 
later,  catching  sight  of  one  of  the  delinquents,  he  had  called  out. 
A  shot  rang  from  the  underbush  ;  another  shot  ;  and  La  Salle 
reeled  forward  dead,  with  a  bullet  wound  gaping  in  his  forehead. 
The  body  of  the  man  who  had  won  a  new  empire  for  France  was 
stripped  and  left  naked,  a  prey  to  the  foxes  and  carrion  birds. 
So  perished  Robert  Cavelier  de  La  Salle,  aged  forty-four. 

Nor  need  the  fate  of  the  mutineers  be  told  here.  The  fate 
of  mutineers  is  the  same   the  world  over.    Having  slain  their 


142  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OE  THE  NORTH 

commander,  they  fell  on  one  another  and  perished,  either  at 
one  another's  hands  or  among  the  Indians.  As  for  the  colonists 
of  men,  women,  and  girls  left  in  Texas,  the  few  who  were  not 
massacred  by  the  Indians  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards. 
La  Salle's  debts  at  the  time  of  his  death  were  what  would  now 
be  half  a  million  dollars.  His  life  had  ended  in  what  the  world 
calls  ruin,  but  France  entered  into  his  heritage. 

With  the  passing  of  Robert  de  La  Salle  passes  the  heroic 
age  of  Canada, — its  age  of  youth's  dream.  Now  was  to  come 
its  manhood,  —  its  struggles,  its  wars,  its  nation  building,  working 
out  a  greater  destiny  than  any  dream  of  youth. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FROM  1679  TO  1713 

Before  leaving  for  France,  Jean  Talon,  the  Intendant,  had  set 
another  exploration  in  motion.  English  trade  was  now  in  full 
sway  on  Hudson  Bay.  In  possession  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Ohio, 
the  Illinois,  the  Great  Lakes,  France  controlled  all  avenues  of 
approach  to  the  Great  Northwest  except  Hudson  Bay.  This 
she  had  lost  through  injustice  to  Radisson ;  and  already  the 
troublesome  question  had  come  up, —  What  was  to  be  the 
boundary  between  the  fur-trading  domain  of  the  French  north- 
ward from  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  fur-trading  domain  of  the 
English  southward  from  Hudson  Bay.  Fewer  furs  came  down 
to  Quebec  from  Labrador,  the  King's  Domain,  from  Kaminis- 
tiquia  (Fort  William),  the  stamping  ground  of  Duluth,  the  forest 
ranger.  The  furs  of  these  regions  were  being  drained  by  the 
English  of  Hudson  Bay. 

Talon  determined  to  put  a  stop  to  this,  and  had  advised 
Frontenac  accordingly.  August,  167 1,  Governor  Frontenac 
dispatched  the  English  Jesuit  —  Father  Albanel — with  French 
guides  and  Indian  voyageurs  to  set  up  French  arms  on  Hudson 
Bay  and  to  bear  letters  to  Radisson  and  Groseillers.  The  jour- 
ney was  terrific.  I  have  told  the  story  elsewhere.  Autumn  found 
the  voyageurs  beyond  the  forested  shores  of  the  Saguenay  and 
Lake  St.  John,  ascending  a  current  full  of  boiling  cascades 
towards  Lake  Mistassini.  Then  the  frost-painted  woods  became 
naked  as  antlers,  with  wintry  winds  setting  the  dead  boughs 
crashing  ;  and  the  ice,  thin  as  mica,  forming  at  the  edges  of 
the  streams,  had  presently  thickened  too  hard  for  the  voyageurs 
to  break  with  their  paddles.  Albanel  and  his  comrades  wintered 
in  the  Montaignais'  lodges,  which  were  banked  so  heavily  with 
snow  that  scarcely  a   breath  of  pure  air  could  penetrate  the 

H3 


144  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

stench.  By  day  the  priest  wandered  from  lodge  to  lodge, 
preaching  the  gospel.  At  night  he  was  to  be  found  afar  in  the 
snow-padded  solitudes  of  the  forest  engaged  in  prayer.  At  last, 
in  the  spring  of  1672,  thaw  set  the  ice  loose  and  the  torrents 
rushing.  Downstream  on  June  10  launched  Albanel,  running 
many  a  wild-rushing  rapid,  taking  the  leap  with  the  torrential 
waters  over  the  lesser  cataracts,  and  avoiding  the  larger  falls  by 
long  detours  over  rocks  slippery  as  ice,  through  swamps  to  a 
man's  armpits.  The  hinterland  of  Hudson  Bay,  with  its  swamps 
and  rough  portages  and  dank  forests  of  unbroken  windfall,  was 
then  and  is  to-day  the  hardest  canoe  trip  in  North  America;  but 
towards  the  end  of  June  the  French  canoes  glided  out  on  the 
arm  of  the  sea  called  James  Bay,  hoisted  the  French  flag,  and  in 
solemn  council  with  the  Indians  presented  gifts  to  induce  them 
to  come  down  the  Saguenay  to  Quebec.  Fort  Rupert,  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company's  post,  consisted  of  two  barrack-like  log 
structures.  When  Albanel  came  to  the  houses  he  found  not  a 
soul,  only  boxes  of  provisions  and  one  lonely  dog. 

A  few  weeks  previously  the  men  of  the  English  company  had 
gone  on  up  the  west  coast  of  Hudson  Bay,  prospecting  for  the 
site  of  a  new  settlement.  Before  Albanel  had  come  at  all,  there 
was  friction  among  the  English.  Radisson  and  Groseillers  were 
Catholics  and  French,  and  they  were  supervisors  of  the  entire 
trade.  Bayly,  the  English  governor,  was  subject  to  them.  So 
was  Captain  Gillam,  with  whom  they  had  quarreled  long  ago, 
when  he  refused  to  take  his  boat  into  Hudson  Straits  on  the 
voyage  from  Port  Royal.  Radisson  and  Groseillers  were  for 
establishing  more  posts  up  the  west  coast  of  Hudson  Bay, 
farther  from  the  competition  of  Duluth's  forest  rovers  on  Lake 
Superior.  They  had  examined  the  great  River  Nelson  and 
urged  Bayly,  the  English  governor,  to  build  a  fort  there.  Bayly 
sulked  and  blustered  by  turns.  In  this  mood  they  had  come 
back  to  Prince  Rupert  to  find  the  French  flag  flying  above 
their  fort  and  the  English  Jesuit,  Albanel,  snugly  ensconced, 
with  passports  from  Governor  Frontenac  and  personal  letters 
for  Radisson  and  Groseillers. 


RADISSON  QUARRELS  WITH  COMPANY  145 


England  and  France  were  at  peace.  Bayly  had  to  respect 
Albanel's  passports,  but  he  wished  this  English  envoy  of  French 
rivals  far  enough  ;  and  when  Captain  Gillam  came  from  England 
the  old  quarrel  flamed  out  in  open  hostility.  Radisson  and 
Groseillers  were  accused  of  being  in  league  with  the  French 
traders.  A  thousand  rumors  of  what  next  happened  have  gained 
currency.  One  writer  says  that  the  English  and  French  came 
to  blows  ;  another,  that 
Radisson  and  Groseillers 
deserted,  going  back 
overland  with  Albanel. 
In  the  Archives  of  Hud- 
son's Bay  House  I  found 
a  letter  stating  that  the 
English  captain  kid- 
napped the  Jesuit  Alba- 
nel and  carried  him  a 
captive  to  England.  It 
may  as  well  be  frankly 
stated  these  rumors  are 
all  sheer  fiction.  Albanel 
went  back  overland  as 
he  came.  Radisson  and 
Groseillers  did  not  go 
with  him,  though  there 
may  have  been  blows. 
Instead,  they  went  to 
England  on  Gillam's  ship  to  present  their  case  to  the  company. 

The  Hudson's  Bay  Company  was  uneasy.  Radisson  and 
Groseillers  were  aliens.  True,  Radisson  had  married  Mary 
Kirke,  the  daughter  of  a  shareholder,  and  was  bound  to  the 
English  ;  but  if  Radisson  and  Groseillers  had  forsworn  one 
land,  might  they  not  forswear  another,  and  go  back  to  the 
French,  as  Frontenac's  letters  no  doubt  urged  ?  The  com- 
pany offered  Radisson  a  salary  of  ^100  a  year  to  stay  as  clerk 
in  England.    They  did  not  want  him  out  on  the  bay  again  ;   but 


PRINCE    RUPERT 

(After  the  painting  by  Sir  P.  Lelv) 


146  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

France  had  offered  Radisson  a  commission  in  the  French  navy. 
Without  more  ado  the  two  Frenchmen  left  London  for  Paris, 
and  Paris  for  America. 

The  year  1676  finds  Radisson  back  in  Quebec  engaged  in 
the  beaver  trade  with  all  those  friends  of  his  youth  whose 
names  have  become  famous,  —  La  Salle  of  Fort  Frontenac,  and 
Charles  Le  Moyne  the  interpreter  of  Montreal,  and  Jolliet  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  La  Forest  who  befriended  La  Salle,  Le 
Chesnaye  who  opposed  him,  and  Duluth  whose  forest  rangers 
roved  from  Lake  Superior  to  Hudson  Bay.  It  can  be  guessed 
what  these  men  talked  about  over  the  table  of  the  Sovereign 
Council  at  Quebec,  whither  they  had  been  called  to  discuss  the 
price  of  beaver  and  the  use  of  brandy. 

The  fur  traders  were  at  that  time  in  two  distinct  rings,  —  the 
ring  of  La  Salle  and  La  Forest,  supported  by  Frontenac  ;  the 
Montreal  ring,  headed  by  Le  Chesnaye,  who  fought  against 
the  opening  of  the  west  because  Lake  Ontario  trade  would 
divert  his  trade  from  the  Ottawa.  Radisson's  report  of  that 
west  coast  of  Hudson  Bay,  in  area  large  as  all  New  France, 
interested  both  factions  of  the  fur  trade  intensely.  He  was 
offered  two  ships  for  Hudson  Bay  by  the  men  of  both  rings. 
Because  England  and  France  were  at  peace,  Frontenac  dared 
not  recognize  the  expedition  officially ;  but  he  winked  at  it, 
—  as  he  winked  at  many  irregularities  in  the  fur  trade, — 
granted  the  Company  of  the  North  license  to  trade  on  Hudson 
Bay,  and  gave  Radisson's  party  passports  "  to  fish  off  Gaspe." 
In  the  venture  Radisson,  Groseillers,  and  the  son  Chouart  Groseil- 
lers,  invested  their  all,  possibly  amounting  to  $2500  each.  The 
rest  of  the  money  for  the  expedition  came  from  the  Godfroys, 
titled  seigneurs  of  Three  Rivers  ;  Dame  Sorel,  widow  of  an 
officer  in  the  Carignan  Regiment ;  Le  Chesnaye,  La  Salle's 
lieutenant,  and  others. 

The  boats  were  rickety  little  tubs  unfit  for  rough  northern  seas, 
and  the  crews  sulky,  underfed  men,  who  threatened  mutiny  at 
every  watering  place  and  only  refrained  from  cutting  Radisson's 


UP  LABRADOR  COAST 


147 


throat  because  he  kept  them  busy.  July  n,  1682,  the  explorers 
sheered  away  from  the  fishing  fleet  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
began  coasting  up  the  lonely  iron  shore  of  Labrador.  Ice  was 
met  sweeping  south  in  mountainous  bergs.    Over  Isle  Demons 


<=o>        ~<J\_^ 


" V  wfotM 


MAP    OF    HUDSON    BAY 


in  the  Straits  of  Belle  Isle  hung  storm  wrack  and  brown  fog  as 
in  the  days  when  Marguerite  Roberval  pined  there.  Then  the 
ships  were  cutting  the  tides  of  Labrador  ;  here  through  fog  ;  there 
skimming  a  coast  that  was  sheer  masonry  to  the  very  sky  ;  again, 
scudding  from  storm  to  refuge  of  some  hole  in  the  wall. 


148  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Before  September  the  ships  rode  triumphantly  into  Five- 
Fathom-Hole  off  Nelson  River,  Hudson  Bay.  Here  two  great 
rivers,  wide  as  the  St.  Lawrence,  rolled  to  the  sea,  separated 
by  a  long  tongue  of  sandy  dunes.  The  north  river  was  the 
Nelson;  the  south,  the  Hayes.  Approach  to  both  was  danger- 
ous, shallow,  sandy,  and  bowlder  strewn  ;  but  Radisson's  vessels 
were  light  draught,  and  he  ran  them  in  oh  the  tide  to  Hayes 
River  on  the  south,  where  his  men  took  possession  for  France 
and  erected  log  huts  as  a  fort. 

Groseillers  remained  at  the  fort  to  command  the  twenty-seven 
men.  Young  Chouart  ranged  the  swamps  and  woods  for  Indians, 
and  Radisson  had  paddled  down  the  Hayes  from  meeting  some 
Assiniboine  hunters,  when,  to  his  amazement,  there  rolled  across 
the  wooded  swamps  the  most  astonishing  report  that  could  be 
heard  in  desolate  solitudes.  It  was  the  rolling  reverberation,  the 
dull  echo  of  a  far-away  cannon  firing  signal  after  signal. 

Like  a  flash  Radisson  guessed  the  game.  After  all,  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company  had  taken  his  advice  and  were  sending  ships 
to  trade  on  the  west  coast.  The  most  of  men,  supported  by  only 
twenty-seven  mutineers,  would  have  scuttled  ships  and  escaped 
overland,  but  the  explorers  of  New  France,  Champlain  and  Jolliet 
and  La  Salle,  were  not  made  of  the  stuff  that  runs  from  trouble. 

Picking  out  three  men,  Radisson  crossed  the  marsh  northward 
to  reconnoiter  on  Nelson  River.  Through  the  brush  he  espied 
a  white  tent  on  what  is  now  known  as  Gillam's  Island,  a  fortress 
half  built,  and  a  ship  at  anchor.  All  night  he  and  his  spies 
watched,  but  none  of  the  builders  came  near  enough  to  be 
seized,  and  next  day  at  noon  Radisson  put  a  bold  face  on  and 
paddled  within  cannon  shot  of  the  island. 

Here  was  a  pretty  to-do,  indeed  !  The  Frenchman  must  have 
laughed  till  he  shook  with  glee  !  It  was  not  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  ship  at  all,  but  a  poacher,  a  pirate,  an  interloper,  for- 
bidden by  the  laws  of  the  English  Company's  monopoly  ;  and 
who  was  the  poacher  but  Ben  Gillam,  of  Boston,  son  of  Cap- 
tain Gillam  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  with  whom,  no  doubt, 
he  was  in  collusion  to  defraud  the  English  traders  !    Calling  for 


RADISSON   CAPTURES  HIS  RIVALS 


149 


Englishmen  to  come  clown  to  the  shore  as  hostages  for  fair 
treatment,  Radisson  went  boldly  aboard  the  young  man's  ship, 
saw  everything,  counted  the  men,  noted  the  fact  that  Gillam's 
crew  were  mutinous,  and  half  frightened  the  life  out  of  the 
young  Boston  captain  by  telling  him  of  the  magnificent  fort  the 
French  had  on  the  south  river,  of  the  frigates  and  cannon  and 
the  powder  magazines.  As  a  friend  he  advised  young  Gillam 
not  to  permit  his  men  to  approach  the  French  ;  otherwise  they 
might  be  attacked  by  the  Quebec  soldiers.  Then  the  crafty 
Radisson  paddled  off,  smiling  to  himself  ;  but  not  so  fast,  not 
so  easy  !  As  he  drifted  down  Nelson  River,  what  should  he  run 
into  full  tilt  but  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  ship  itself,  brist- 
ling with  cannon,  manned  by  his  old  enemy,  Captain  Gillam  ! 

If  the  two  English  parties  came  together,  Radisson  was  lost. 
He  must  beat  them  singly  before  they  met ;  and  again  putting 
on  a  bold  face,  he  marched  out,  met  his  former  associates,  and 
as  a  friend  advised  them  not  to  ascend  the  river  farther.  Fortu- 
nately for  Radisson,  both  Gillam  and  Bridgar,  the  Hudson's 
Bay  governor,  were  drinking  heavily  and  glad  to  take  his  advice. 
The  winter  passed,  with  Radisson  perpetrating  such  tricks  on 
his  rivals  as  a  player  might  with  the  dummy  men  on  a  chess- 
board ;  but  the  chessboard,  with  the  English  rivals  for  pawns, 
was  suddenly  upset  by  the  unexpected.  Young  Gillam  discov- 
ered that  Radisson  had  no  fort  at  all, — only  log  cabins  with  a 
handful  of  ragamuffin  bushrovers  ;  and  Captain  Gillam  senior 
got  word  of  young  Gillam's  presence.  Radisson  had  to  act,  act 
quickly,  and  on  the  nail. 

Leaving  half  a  dozen  men  as  hostages  in  young  Gillam's  fort, 
Radisson  invited  the  youth  to  visit  the  French  fort  for  which  the 
young  Boston  fellow  had  expressed  such  skeptical  scorn.  To 
make  a  long  story  short,  young  Gillam  was  no  sooner  out  of  his 
own  fort  than  the  French  hostages  took  peaceable  possession  of 
it,  and  Gillam  was  no  sooner  in  Radisson's  fort  than  the  French 
clapped  him  a  prisoner  in  their  guardroom.  Ignorant  that  the 
French  had  captured  young  Gillam's  fort,  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  men  had  marched   upstream  at   dead  of  night  to  his 


150  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

rescue.  The  English  knocked  for  admittance.  The  French 
guards  threw  open  the  gates.  In  marched  the  English  traders. 
The  French  clapped  the  gates  to.  The  English  were  now  them- 
selves prisoners.  Such  a  double  victory  would  have  been  im- 
possible to  the  French  if  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  men  had 
not  fuddled  themselves  with  drink  and  allowed  their  fine  ship, 
the  Prince  Rupert,  to  be  wrecked  in  the  ice  drive. 

In  spring  the  ice  jam  wrecked  Radisson's  vessels,  too,  so 
he  was  compelled  to  send  the  most  of  his  prisoners  in  a  sloop 
down  Hudson  Bay  to  Prince  Rupert,  while  he  carried  the  rest 
with  him  on  young  Gillam's  ship  down  to  Quebec  with  an  enor- 
mous cargo  of  furs. 

By  all  the  laws  of  navigation  Ben  Gillam  was  nothing  more 
or  less  than  pirate.  The  monopoly  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany forbade  him  trading  on  Hudson  Bay.  The  license  of  the 
Company  of  the  North  at  Quebec  also  excluded  him.  In  later 
years,  indeed,  young  Gillam  turned  pirate  outright,  was  captured 
in  connection  with  Captain  Kidd  at  Boston,  and  is  supposed  to 
have  been  executed  with  the  famous  pirate.  But  when  Radis- 
son  left  Nelson  in  charge  of  young  Chouart  and  came  down  to 
Quebec  with  young  Gillam's  ship  as  prize,  a  change  had  taken 
place  at  Quebec.  Governor  Frontenac  had  been  recalled.  In 
his  place  was  La  Barre,  whose  favor  could  be  bought  by  any 
man  who  would  pay  the  bribe,  and  who  had  already  ruined  La 
Salic  by  permitting  creditors  to  seize  Fort  Frontenac.  England 
and  FVance  were  at  peace.  Therefore  La  Barre  gave  Gillam's 
vessel  back  to  him.  The  revenue  collectors  were  permitted  to 
seize  all  the  furs  which  La  Chesnaye  had  not  already  shipped 
to  France.  Though  La  Barre  was  reprimanded  by  the  King  for 
both  acts,  not  a  sou  did  Radisson  and  Groseillers  and  Chouart 
ever  receive  for  their  investment ;  and  Radisson  was  ordered  to 
report  at  once  to  the  King  in  France. 

The  next  part  of  Radisson's  career  has  always  been  the  great 
blot  upon  his  memory,  a  blot  that  seemed  incomprehensible  ex- 
cept on  the  ground  that  his  English  wife  had  induced  him  to 


RADISSON   ORDERED   BACK  TO   ENGLAND  151 

return  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company;  but  in  the  memorials 
left  by  Radisson  himself,  in  Hudson's  Bay  House,  London,  I 
found  the  true  explanation  of  his  conduct. 

France  and  England  were,  as  yet,  at  peace  ;  but  it  was  a  pact 
of  treacherous  kind,  —  secret  treaty  by  which  the  King  of  Eng- 
land drew  pay  from  the  King  of  France.  The  King  of  France 
dared  not  offend  England  by  giving  public  approval  to  Radisson's 
capture  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  territory;  therefore 
he  ordered  Radisson  to  go  back  to  Hudson's  Bay  Company  serv- 
ice and  restore  what  he  had  captured.  But  the  King  of  France 
had  no  notion  of  relinquishing  claim  to  the  vast  territory  of 
Hudson  Bay  ;  therefore  he  commanded  Radisson  to  go  unoffi- 
cially. Groseillers,  the  brother,  seems  to  have  dropped  from  all 
engagements  from  this  time,  and  to  have  returned  to  Three 
Rivers.  A  copy  of  the  French  minister's  instructions  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Radisson  records  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
to-day.  Not  a  sou  of  compensation  was  Radisson  to  receive  for 
the  money  that  he  and  his  friends  had  invested  in  the  venture 
of  1 682- 1 68 3.  Not  a  penny  of  reparation  was  he  to  obtain  for 
the  furs  at  Nelson,  which  he  was  to  turn  over  to  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company. 

In  France,  preparation  went  forward  as  if  for  a  second  voyage 
to  Nelson  ;  but  Radisson  secretly  left  Paris  for  London,  where 
he  was  welcomed  by  the  courtiers  of  England  in  May,  1684, 
and  given  presents  by  King  Charles  and  the  Duke  of  York,  who 
were  shareholders  in  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Ma)'  17  he 
sailed  with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  vessels  for  Port  Nelson, 
and  there  took  over  from  young  Chouart  the  French  forts  with 
,£20,000  worth  of  furs  for  the  English  company. 

Young  Chouart  Groseillers  and  his  five  comrades  were  furi- 
ous. They  had  borne  the  brunt  of  attack  from  both  English 
and  Indian  enemies  during  Radisson's  absence,  and  they  were 
to  receive  not  a  penny  for  the  furs  collected.  And  their  fury 
knew  no  bounds  when  they  were  forcibly  carried  back  to  Eng- 
land. The  English  had  invited  them  on  board  one  of  the  vessels 
for  last  instructions.    Quickly  the  anchor  was  slipped,  sails  run 


152  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

out,  and  the  kidnapped  Frenchmen  carried  from  the  bay.  In  a 
second,  young  Chouart's  hand  was  on  his  sword,  and  he  would 
have  fought  on  the  spot,  but  Radisson  begged  him  to  conceal 
his  anger;  "for,"  urged  Radisson,  "some  of  these  English  ruffians 
would  like  nothing  better  than  to  stab  you  in  a  scuffle." 

In  London,  Radisson  was  lionized,  publicly  thanked  by  the 
company,  presented  to  the  court,  and  given  a  present  of  silver 
plate.  As  for  the  young  French  captives,  they  were  treated 
royally,  voted  salaries  of  ^ioo  a  year,  and  all  their  expenses  of 
lodgings  paid  ;  but  when  they  spoke  of  returning  to  France,  un- 
expected obstructions  were  created.  Their  money  was  held  back ; 
they  were  dogged  by  spies.  Finally  they  took  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance to  England,  and  accepted  engagements  to  go  back  as 
servants  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  to  Nelson  at  salaries 
ranging  from  ^ioo  to  ^40,  good  pay  as  money  was  estimated 
in  those  days,  equal  to  at  least  five  times  as  much  money  of  the 
present  day.  It  was  even  urged  on  young  Chouart  that  he  should 
take  an  English  wife,  as  Radisson  had  ;  but  the  young  French- 
men smiled  quietly  to  themselves.  Secret  offers  of  a  title  had 
been  conveyed  to  Chouart  by  the  French  ambassador ;  and  to 
his  mother  in  Three  Rivers  he  wrote  : 

I  could  not  go  to  Paris  ;  I  was  not  at  liberty  ;  but  I  shall  be  at  the  ren- 
dezvous or  perish  trying.  I  cannot  say  more  in  a  letter.  I  would  have  left 
this  kingdom,  but  they  hold  back  my  pay,  and  orders  have  been  given  to 
arrest  me  if  I  try  to  leave.  Assure  Mr.  Duluth  of  my  humble  services.  I 
shall  see  him  as  soon  as  I  can.    Pray  tell  my  good  friend,  Jan  Pere. 

Pere,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  a  bushranger  of  Duluth's 
band,  who  had  been  with  Jolliet  on  Lake  Superior. 

As  for  Radisson,  the  English  kept  faith  with  him  as  long  as 
the  Stuarts  and  his  personal  friends  ruled  the  English  court. 
He  spent  the  summers  on  Hudson  Bay  as  superintendent  of 
trade,  the  winters  in  England  supervising  cargoes  and  sales. 
His  home  was  on  Seething  Lane  near  the  great  Tower,  where 
one  of  his  friends  was  commander.  Near  him  dwelt  the  mer- 
chant princes  of  London  like  the  Kirkes  and  the  Robinsons  and 
the  Youngs.    His  next-door  neighbor  was  the  man  of  fashion, 


DEATH  OF  RADISSON 


153 


Samuel  Pepys,  in  whose  hands  Radisson's  Journals  of  his  voyages 
finally  fell.  His  income  at  this  time  was  ^100  in  dividends,  ^100 
in  salary,  equal  to  about  five  times  that  amount  in  modern  money. 
Then  came  a  change  in  Radisson's  fortunes.  The  Stuarts 
were  dethroned  and  their  friends  dispersed.  The  shareholders 
of  the  fur  company  bore  names  of  men  who  knew  naught  of 
Radisson's  services.  War  destroyed  the  fur  company's  divi- 
dends. Radisson's  income  fell  off  to  £$0  a  year.  His  family 
had  increased  ;  so  had  his  debts  ;  and  he  had  long  since  been 
compelled  to  move  from  fashionable  quarters.  A  petition  filed 
in  a  lawsuit  avers  that  he  was  in  great  mental  anxiety  lest  his 
children  should  come  to  want ;  but  he  won  his  lawsuits  against 
the  company  for  arrears  of  salary.  Peace  brought  about  a  re- 
sumption of  dividends,  and  the  old  pathfinder  seems  to  have 
passed  his  last  years  in  comparative  comfort.  Some  time  be- 
tween March  and  July,  17 10,  Radisson  set  out  on  the  Last  Long 
Voyage  of  all  men,  dying  near  London.  His  burial  place  is  un- 
known. As  far  as  Canada  is  concerned,  Radisson  stands  fore- 
most as  pathfinder  of  the  Great  Northwest. 

But  to  return  to  "good  friend,  Jan  Pere,"  whom  the  French- 
men, forced  into  English  service,  were  to  meet  somewhere  on 
Hudson  Bay.    It  is  like  a  story  from  borderland  forays. 

Seven  large  ships  set  sail  from  England  for  Hudson  Bay  in 
1685,  carrying  Radisson  and  young  Chouart  and  the  five  unwill- 
ing Frenchmen.  The  company's  forts  on  the  bay  now  numbered 
four  :  Nelson,  highest  up  on  the  west  ;  Albany,  southward  on 
an  island  at  the  mouth  of  Albany  River;  Moose,  just  where 
James  Bay  turns  westward  ;  and  Rupert  at  the  southeast  corner. 
But  French  ships  under  La  Martiniere  of  the  Sovereign  Coun- 
cil had  also  set  sail  from  Quebec  in  1685,  commissioned  by  the 
indignant  fur  traders  to  take  Radisson  dead  or  alive  ;  for  Quebec 
did  not  know  the  secret  orders  of  the  French  court,  which  had 
occasioned  Radisson's  last  defection. 

July  saw  the  seven  Hudson's  Bay  ships  worming  their  way 
laboriously  through  the  ice  floes  of  the  straits.    Small  sails  only 


154 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


were  used.  With  grappling  hooks  thrown  out  on  the  ice  pans 
and  crews  toiling  to  their  armpits  in  ice  slush,  the  boats  pulled 
themselves  forward,  resting  on  the  lee  side  of  some  ice  floe 
during  ebb  tide,  all  hands  out  to  fight  the  roaring  ice  pans 
when  the  tide  began  to  come  in.  At  length  on  the  night  of 
July  27,  with  crews  exhausted  and  the  timbers  badly  rammed, 
the  ships  steered  to  rest  in  a  harbor  off  Digge's  Island,  sheltered 
from  the  ice  drive.  The  nights  of  that  northern  sea  are  light 
almost  as  day  ;  but  clouds  had  shrouded  the  sky  and  a  white 
mist  was  rising  from  the  water  when  there  glided  like  ghosts 
from  gloom  two  strange  vessels.  Before  the  exhausted  crews 
of  the  English  ships  were  well  awake,  the  waters  were  churned 
to  foam  by  a  roar  of  cannonading.  The  strange  ships  had 
bumped  keels  with  the  little  Merchant  Perpetuana  of  the  Hud- 
son's Bay.  Radisson,  on  whose  head  lay  a  price,  was  first  to 
realize  that  they  were  attacked  by  French  raiders;  and  his  ship 
was  out  with  sails  and  off  like  a  bird,  followed  by  the  other 
English  vessels,  all  except  the  little  Perpetuana,  now  in  death 
grapple  between  her  foes.  Captain  Hume,  Mates  Smithsend 
and  Grimmington  fought  like  demons  to  keep  the  French  from 
boarding  her  ;  but  they  were  knocked  clown,  fettered  and  clapped 
below  hatches  while  the  victors  plundered  the  cargo.  Fourteen 
men  were  put  to  the  sword.  August  witnessed  ship,  cargo,  and 
captives  brought  into  Quebec  amid  noisy  acclaim  and  roar  of 
cannon.  The  French  had  not  captured  Radisson  nor  ransomed 
Chouart,  but  there  was  booty  to  the  raiders.  New  France  had 
proved  her  right  to  trade  on  Hudson  Bay  spite  of  peace  between 
F"  ranee  and  England,  or  secret  commands  to  Radisson.  Thrown 
in  a  dungeon  below  Chateau  St.  Louis,  Quebec,  the  English 
captives  hear  wild  rumors  of  another  raid  on  the  bay,  overland 
in  winter;  and  Smithsend,  by  secret  messenger,  sends  warning 
to  England,  and  for  his  pains  is  sold  with  his  fellow-captives 
into  slavery  in  Martinique,  whence  he  escapes  to  England  before 
the  summer  of  1686. 

But  what  is  Jan  Pere  of  Duluth's  bushrovers  doing  ?    All  un- 
conscious of  the  raid  on  the  ships,  the  governors  of  the  four 


JAN  PERfi  THE  SPY 


155 


English  forts  awaited  the  coming  of  the  annual  supplies.  At 
Albany  was  a  sort  of  harbor  beacon  as  well  as  lookout,  built 
high  on  scaffolding  above  a  hill.  One  morning,  in  August  of 
1685,  the  sentry  on  the  lookout  was  amazed  to  see  three  men, 
white  men,  in  a  canoe,  steering  swiftly  down  the  rain-swollen 
river  from  the  Up-Country.  Such  a  thing  was  impossible. 
"White  men  from  the  interior!  Whence  did  they  come?" 
Governor  Sargeant  came  striding  to  the  fort  gate,  ordering  his 


CONTEMPORARY   FREN'CH  MAP  OF  HUDSON   BAY  AND  VICINITY 


cannon  manned.  Behold  nothing  more  dangerous  than  three 
French  forest  rangers  dressed  in  buckskins,  but  with  manners  a 
trifle  too  smooth  for  such  rough  garb,  as  one  doffs  his  cap  to 
Governor  Sargeant  and  introduces  himself  as  Jan  Pere,  a  woods- 
man out  hunting. 

England  and  France  were  at  peace  ;  so  Governor  Sargeant 
invited  the  three  mysterious  gentlemen  inside  to  a  breakfast  of 
sparkling  wines  and  good  game,  hoping  no  doubt  that  the  wines 
would  unlock  the  gay  fellows'  tongues  to  tell  what  game  they 
were  playing.    As  the  wine  passed  freely,  there  were  stories  of 


156  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

the  hunt  and  the  voyage  and  the  annual  ships.  When  might 
the  ships  be  coming?  "Humph,"  mutters  Sargeant  through 
his  beard  ;  and  he  does  n't  urge  these  knights  of  the  wild  woods 
to  tarry  longer.  Their  canoe  glides  gayly  down  coast  to  the 
salt  marshes,  where  the  shooting  is  good  ;  but  by  chance  that 
night,  purely  by  chance,  the  French  leave  their  canoe  so  that 
the  tide  will  carry  it  away.  Then  they  come  back  crestfallen  to 
the  English  fort. 

Meanwhile  a  ship  has  arrived  with  the  story  of  the  raid  on 
the  Perpetuana.  Sargeant  is  so  enraged  that  he  sends  two  of  the 
French  spies  across  to  Charlton  Island,  where  they  can  hunt  or 
die  ;  Monsieur  Jan  Pere  he  casts  into  the  cellar  of  Albany  with 
irons  on  his  wrists  and  balls  on  his  feet.  When  the  ships  sail 
for  England,  Pere  is  sent  back  as  prisoner  without  having  had 
one  word  with  Chouart  Groseillers.  As  for  the  two  Frenchmen 
placed  on  Charlton  Island,  did  Sargeant  think  they  were  bush- 
rovers  and  would  stay  on  an  island  ?  By  October  they  have 
laid  up  store  of  moose  meat,  built  themselves  a  canoe,  paddled 
across  to  the  mainland,  and  are  speeding  like  wildfire  overland 
to  Michilimackinac  with  word  that  Jan  Pere  is  held  prisoner  at 
Albany.  As  Jan  Pere  drops  out  of  history  here,  it  may  be  said 
that  he  was  kept  prisoner  in  England  as  guarantee  for  the 
safety  of  the  English  crew  held  prisoners  at  Quebec.  When  he 
escaped  to  France  he  was  given  money  and  a  minor  title  for 
his  services. 

The  news  that  Pere  lay  in  a  dungeon  on  Hudson  Bay  supplied 
the  very  excuse  that  the  Quebec  fur  traders  needed  for  an  over- 
land raid  in  time  of  peace.  These  were  the  wild  rumors  of  which 
the  captive  English  crew  sent  warning  to  England  ;  but  the  north- 
ern straits  would  not  be  open  to  the  company  ships  before  June 
of  1686,  and  already  a  hundred  wild  French  bushrovers  were 
rallying  to  ascend  the  Ottawa  to  raid  the  English  on  Hudson  Bay. 

And  now  a  change  comes  in  Canadian  annals.  For  half  a 
century  its  story  is  a  record  of  lawless  raids,  blood}'  foray, 
dare-devil  courage  combined  with  the  most  fiendish  cruelty  and 
sublime  heroism.   Only  a  few  of  these  raids  can  be  narrated  here. 


THE  RAID  ON  MOOSE   FACTORY 


157 


June  18,  1686,  when  the  long  twilight  of  the  northern  night 
merged  with  dawn,  there  came  out  from  the  thicket  of  under- 
brush round  Moose  Factory,  Hudson  Bay,  one  hundred  bush- 
rovers,  led  by  Chevalier  de  Troyes  of  Niagara,  accompanied  by 
Le  Chesnaye  of  the  fur  trade,  Quebec,  and  the  Jesuit,  Sylvie. 
Of  the  raiders,  sixty-six  were  Indians  under  Pierre  Le  Moyne 
d' Iberville   and   his   brothers,  Maricourt  and  Ste.   Helene,  aged 


£  ^Loy-^.  9j^W^L_ 


LE  MOYNE   I)  IBERVILLE 


about  twenty-four,  sons  of  Charles  Le  Moyne,  the  Montreal 
interpreter.  Moose  Factory  at  this  time  boasted  fourteen  cannon, 
log-slab  palisades,  commodious  warehouses,  and  four  stone  bas- 
tions,—  one  with  three  thousand  pounds  of  powder,  another 
used  as  barracks  for  twelve  soldiers,  another  housing  beaver 
pelts,  and  a  fourth  serving  as  kitchen.  Iberville  and  his  brothers, 
scouting  round  on  different  sides  of  the  fort,  soon  learned  that 
not  a  sentinel  was  on  duty.  The  great  gate  opposite  the  river, 
studded  with  brass  nails,  was  securely  bolted,  but  not  a  cannon 


158  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

had  been  loaded.  The  bushrangers  then  cast  aside  all  clothing 
that  would  hamper,  and,  pistol  in  hand,  advanced  silent  and 
stealthy  as  wild-cats.  Not  a  twig  crunched  beneath  the  moccasin 
tread.  The  water  lay  like  glass,  and  the  fort  slept  silent  as  death. 
Hastily  each  raider  had  knelt  for  the  blessing  of  the  priest. 
Pistols  had  been  recharged.  Iberville  bade  his  wild  Indians  not 
to  forget  that  the  Sovereign  Council  of  Quebec  offered  ten 
crowns  reward  for  every  enemy  slain,  twenty  for  every  enemy 
captured.  In  fact,  there  could  be  no  turning  back.  Two  thou- 
sand miles  of  juniper  swamps  and  forests  lay  between  the  bush- 
rovers  and  home.  They  must  conquer  or  perish.  De  Troyes  led 
his  white  soldiers  round  to  make  a  pretense  of  attack  from  the 
water  front.  Iberville  posted  his  sixty-six  Indians  along  the  walls 
with  muskets  rammed  through  the  loopholes.  Then,  with  an 
unearthly  yell,  the  Le  Moyne  brothers  were  over  the  tops  of 
the  pickets,  swords  in  hand,  before  the  English  soldiers  had 
awakened.  The  English  gunner  reeled  from  his  cannon  at  the 
main  gate  with  head  split  to  the  collar  bone.  The  gates  were 
thrown  wide,  trees  rammed  the  doors  open,  and  Iberville  had 
dashed  halfway  up  the  stairs  of  the  main  house  before  the  in- 
mates, rushing  out  in  their  nightshirts,  realized  what  had  hap- 
pened. Two  men  only  were  killed,  one  on  each  side.  The  French 
were  masters  of  Moose  Fort  in  less  than  five  minutes,  with  six- 
teen captives  and  rich  supply  of  ammunition. 

Eastward  of  Moose  was  Rupert  Fort,  where  the  company's 
ship  anchored.  Hither  the  raiders  plied  their  canoes  by  sea. 
Look  at  the  map  !  Across  the  bottom  of  James  Bay  projects  a 
long  tongue  of  swamp  land.  To  save  time,  Iberville  portaged 
across  this,  and  by  July  i  was  opposite  Prince  Rupert's  bas- 
tions. At  the  dock  lay  the  English  ship.  That  day  Iberville's 
men  kept  in  hiding,  but  at  night  he  had  ambushed  his  men 
along  shore  and  paddled  across  to  the  ship.  Just  as  Iberville 
stepped  on  the  deck  a  man  on  guard  sprang  at  his  throat.  One 
blow  of  Iberville's  sword  killed  the  Englishman  on  the  spot. 
Stamping  to  call  the  crew  aloft,  Iberville  sabered  the  men  as 
they  scrambled  up  the  hatches,  till  the  Governor  himself  threw 


SARGEANT  BESIEGED 


!59 


up  hands  in  unconditional  surrender.  The  din  had  alarmed 
the  fort,  and  hot  shot  snapping  fire  from  the  loopholes  kept 
the  raiders  off  till  the  Le  Moyne  brothers  succeeded  in  scram- 
bling to  the  roofs  of  the  bastions,  hacking  holes  through  the 
rough  thatch  and  firing  inside.  This  drove  the  English  gunners 
from  their  cannon.  A  moment  later,  and  the  raiders  were  on 
the  walls.  It  was  a  repetition  of  the  fight  at  Moose  Factory. 
The  English,  taken  by  surprise,  surrendered  at  once  ;  and  the 
French  now  had  thirty  prisoners,  a  good  ship,  two  forts,  but  no 
provisions. 

Northwestward  three  hundred  miles  lay  Albany  Fort.  Iber- 
ville led  off  in  canoes  with  his  bushrovers.  De  Troyes  followed 
on  the  English  boat  with  French  soldiers  and  English  prisoners. 
To  save  time,  as  the  bay  seemed  shallow,  Iberville  struck  out 
from  the  shore  across  seas.  All  at  once  a  north  wind  began 
whipping  the  waters,  sweeping  down  a  maelstrom  of  churning 
ice.  Worse  still,  fog  fell  thick  as  wool.  Any  one  who  knows 
canoe  travel  knows  the  danger.  Iberville  avoided  swamping  by 
ordering  his  men  to  camp  for  the  night  on  the  shifting  ice  pans, 
canoes  held  above  heads  where  the  ice  crush  was  wildest,  the 
voyageurs  clinging  hand  to  hand,  making  a  life  line  if  one  chanced 
to  slither  through  the  ice  slush.  When  daylight  came  with  worse 
fog,  Iberville  kept  his  pistol  firing  to  guide  his  followers,  and  so 
pushed  on.  Four  days  the  dangerous  traverse  lasted,  but  August 
i  the  bushrovers  were  in  camp  below  the  cliffs  of  Albany. 

Indians  had  forewarned  Governor  Sargeant.  The  loopholes 
of  his  palisades  bristled  with  muskets  and  heavy  guns  that  set 
the  bullets  flying  soon  as  De  Troyes  arrived  and  tried  to  land 
the  cannon  captured  from  the  other  forts  for  assault  on  Albany. 
Drums  beating,  flags  flying,  soldiers  in  line,  a  French  messenger 
goes  halfway  forward  and  demands  of  an  English  messenger 
come  halfway  out  the  surrender  of  Sieur  Jan  Pere,  languishing 
in  the  dungeons  of  Albany.  The  English  Governor  sends  curt 
word  back  that  Pere  has  been  sent  home  to  France  long  ago, 
and  demands  what  in  thunder  the  French  mean  by  these  raids 
in  time   of  peace.    The  French    retire   that   night    to   consider. 


160  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Cannon  they  have,  but  they  have  used  up  nearly  all  their 
ammunition.  They  have  thirty  prisoners,  but  they  have  no 
provisions.  The  prisoners  have  told  them  there  are  .£50,000 
worth  of  furs  stored  at  Albany. 

Inside  the  fort  the  English  were  in  almost  as  bad  way.  The 
larder  was  lean,  powder  was  scarce,  and  the  men  were  wildly 
mutinous,  threatening  to  desert  en  masse  for  the  French  on  the 
excuse  they  had  not  hired  to  fight,  and  "  if  any  of  ?ts  lost  a  /eg, 
tJie  company  could  not  make  it  good." 

At  the  end  of  two  days'  desultory  firing,  the  company  Gov- 
ernor captured  down  at  Rupert  came  to  Sargeant  and  told  him 
frankly  that  the  bloodthirsty  bushrovers  were  desperate  ;  they 
had  either  to  conquer  or  starve,  and  if  they  were  compelled  to 
fight,  there  would  be  no  quarter.  Men  and  women  alike  would 
be  butchered  in  hand-to-hand  fight.  Still  Sargeant  hung  on, 
hoping  for  the  annual  frigate  of  the  company.  Then  powder 
failed  utterly.  Still  Sargeant  would  not  show  the  white  flag ; 
so  an  underfactor  flourished  a  white  sheet  from  an  upper  win- 
dow. Chevalier  De  Troyes  came  forward  and  seated  himself 
on  one  of  the  cannon.  Governor  Sargeant  went  out  and  seated 
himself  on  the  same  cannon  with  two  bottles  of  wine.  The  Eng- 
lish of  Albany  were  allowed  to  withdraw  to  Charlton  Island  to 
await  the  company  ship.  As  for  the  other  prisoners,  those  who 
were  not  compelled  to  carry  the  plundered  furs  back  to  Quebec, 
were  turned  adrift  in  the  woods  to  find  their  way  overland 
north  to  Nelson.  Iberville's  bushrovers  were  back  in  Montreal 
by  October. 


CHAPTER   IX 

FROM    168G  TO   1698 

For  ten  years  Hudson  Bay  becomes  the  theater  of  northern 
buccaneers  and  bushraiders.  A  treaty  of  neutrality  in  1686 
provides  that  the  bay  shall  be  held  in  common  by  the  fur  traders 
of  England  and  France  ;  but  the  adventurers  of  England  and 
the  bushrovers  of  Quebec  have  no  notion  of  leaving  things  so 
uncertain.  Spite  of  truce,  both  fit  out  raiders,  and  the  King 
of  France,  according  to  the  shifting  diplomacy  of  the  day,  issues 
secret  orders  "  to  permit  not  a  vestige  of  English  possession  on 
the  northern  bay." 

Maricourt  Le  Moyne  held  the  newly  captured  forts  on  the 
south  shore  of  James  Bay  till  Iberville  came  back  overland  in 
1687.  The  fort  at  Rupert  had  been  completely  abandoned  after 
the  French  victory  of  the  previous  summer,  and  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  sloop,  the  Young,  had  just  sailed  into  the  port  to 
reestablish  the  fur  post.  Iberville  surrounded  the  sloop  by  his 
bushrovers,  captured  it  with  all  hands,  and  dispatched  four  spies 
across  to  Charlton  Island,  where  another  sloop,  the  Churchill, 
swung  at  anchor.  Here  Iberville's  run  of  luck  turned.  Three  of 
his  four  spies  were  captured,  fettered,  and  thrown  into  the  hold 
of  the  vessel  for  the  winter.  In  the  spring  of  1 688  one  was  brought 
above  decks  to  help  the  English  sailors.  Watching  his  chance, 
the  grizzled  bushrover  waited  till  six  of  the  English  crew  were 
up  the  ratlines.  Quick  as  flash  the  Frenchman  tiptoed  across 
decks  in  his  noiseless  moccasins,  took  one  precautionary  glance 
over  his  shoulder,  brained  two  Englishmen  with  an  ax,  liberated 
his  comrades,  and  at  pistol  point  kept  the  other  Englishmen  up 
the  masts  till  he  and  his  fellows  had  righted  the  ship  and  steered 
the  vessel  across  to  Rupert  River,  where  the  provisions  were  just 
in  time  to  save  Iberville's  party  from  starvation. 

161 


1 62  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

This  episode  is  typical  of  what  went  on  at  the  Hudson's  Bay 
forts  for  ten  years.  Each  year,  when  the  English  ships  came 
out  to  Nelson  on  the  west  coast,  armed  bands  were  sent  south 
to  wrest  the  forts  on  James  Bay  from  the  French  ;  and  each 
spring,  when  Iberville's  bushrovers  came  gliding  down  the 
rivers  in  their  canoes  from  Canada,  there  was  a  fight  to  drive 
out  the  English.  Then  the  Indians  would  scatter  to  their  hunt- 
ing grounds.  No  more  loot  of  furs  for  a  year !  The  English 
would  sail  away  in  their  ships,  the  French  glide  away  in  their 
canoes  ;  and  for  a  winter  the  uneasy  quiet  of  calm  between 
two  thunderclaps  would  rest  over  the  waters  of  Hudson  Bay. 

In  the  spring  of  1688,  about  the  time  that  the  brave  bush- 
rovers  had  brought  the  English  ship  from  Charlton  Island  across 
to  Rupert  River,  two  English  frigates  under  Captain  Moon, 
with  twenty-four  soldiers  over  and  above  the  crews,  had  come 
south  from  Nelson  to  attack  the  French  fur  traders  at  Albany. 
As  ill  luck  would  have  it,  the  ice  floes  began  driving  inshore. 
The  English  ships  found  themselves  locked  in  the  ice  before 
the  besieged  fort.  Across  the  jam  from  Rupert  River  dashed 
Iberville  with  his  Indian  bandits,  portaging  where  the  ice  floes 
covered' the  water,  paddling  where  lanes  of  clear  way  parted  the 
floating  drift.  Iberville  hid  his  men  in  the  tamarack  swamps  till 
eighty-two  Englishmen  had  landed  and  all  unsuspecting  left  their 
ships  unguarded.  Iberville  only  waited  till  the  furs  in  the  fort  had 
been  transferred  to  the  holds  of  the  vessels.  The  ice  cleared. 
The  Frenchman  rushed  his  bushrovers  on  board,  seized  the  ves- 
sel with  the  most  valuable  cargo,  and  sailed  gayly  out  of  Albany 
for  Quebec.  The  astounded  English  set  fire  to  the  other  ship 
and  retreated  overland. 

But  the  dare-devil  bushrovers  were  not  yet  clear  of  trouble. 
As  the  ice  drive  jammed  and  held  them  in  Hudson  Straits,  they 
were  aghast  to  see,  sailing  full  tilt  with  the  roaring  tide  of  the 
straits,  a  fleet  of  English  frigates,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany's annual  ships  ;  but  Iberville  sniffed  at  danger  as  a  war 
horse  glories  in  gunpowder.  He  laughed  his  merriest,  and  as 
the  ice  drive  locked   all  the  ships  within  gunshot,  ran  up  an 


WAR  WITH  THE  IROQUOIS  163 

English  flag  above  his  French  crew  and  had  actually  signaled 
the  captains  of  the  English  frigates  to  come  aboard  and  visit 
him,  when  the  ice  cleared.  Hoisting  sail,  he  showed  swift  heels 
to  the  foe.  Iberville's  ambition  now  was  to  sweep  all  the  Eng- 
lish from  Hudson  Bay,  in  other  words,  to  capture  Nelson 
on  the  west  coast,  whence  came  the  finest  furs  ;  but  other  raids 
called  him  to  Canada. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  La  Salle's  enemies  had  secretly  en- 
couraged the  Iroquois  to  attack  the  tribes  of  the  Illinois  ;  and 
now  the  fur  traders  of  New  York  were  encouraging  the  Iroquois 
to  pillage  the  Indians  of  the  Mississippi  valley,  in  order  to  divert 
peltries  from  the  French  on  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  English  at 
New  York.  Savages  of  the  north,  rallied  by  Perrot  and  Duluth 
and  La  Motte  Cadillac,  came  down  by  the  lakes  to  Fort  Frontenac 
to  aid  the  French  ;  but  they  found  that  La  Barre,  the  new 
governor,  foolish  old  man,  had  been  frightened  into  making 
peace  with  the  Iroquois  warriors,  abandoning  the  Illinois  to 
Iroquois  raid  and  utterly  forgetful  that  a  peace  which  is  not  a 
victory  is  not  worth  the  paper  it  is  written  on. 

For  the  shame  of  this  disgraceful  peace  La  Barre  was  recalled 
to  France  and  the  Marquis  de  Denonville,  a  brave  soldier,  sent 
out  as  governor.  Unfortunately  Denonville  did  not  understand 
conditions  in  the  colony.  The  Jesuit  missionaries  were  com- 
missioned to  summon  the  Iroquois  to  a  conference  at  Fort 
Frontenac,  but  when  the  deputies  arrived  they  were  seized, 
tortured,  and  fifty  of  them  shipped  to  France  by  the  King's 
order  to  serve  as  slaves  on  the  royal  galleys.  It  was  an  act  of 
treachery  heinous  beyond  measure  and  exposed  the  Jesuit  mis- 
sionaries among  the  Five  Nations  to  terrible  vengeance  ;  but 
the  Iroquois  code  of  honor  was  higher  than  the  white  man's. 
"Go  home,"  they  warned  the  Jesuit  missionary.  "  We  have 
now  every  right  to  treat  thee  as  our  foe  ;  but  we  shall  not  do 
so  !  Thy  heart  has  had  no  share  in  the  wrong  clone  to  us.  We 
shall  not  punish  thee  for  the  crimes  of  another,  tho'  thou  didst 
act  as  the  unconscious  tool.    But  leave  us  !    When  our  young 


1 64 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


men  chant  the  song  of  war  they  may  take  counsel  only  of  their 
fury  and  harm  thee!  Go  to  thine  own  people";  and  furnishing 
him  with  guides,  they  sent  him  to  Quebec. 

Though  Denonville  marched  with  his  soldiers  through  the 
Iroquois  cantons,  he  did  little  harm  and  less  good ;  for  the  wily 
warriors  had  simply  withdrawn  their  families  into  the  woods,  and 
the  Iroquois  were  only  biding  their  time  for  fearful  vengeance. 

This  lust  of  vengeance  was  now  terribly  whetted.  Dongan, 
the  English  governor  of  New  York,  had  been  ordered  by  King 


,1.1   ,,.  |/„u     .   .—          .  .^||V,-i                                   ~ 

L*         -A.         iv         JB            ,,,,,..,        .-"'  c^»/1^£_xf 

j,                 ." .  ,-•  i-^  ^   -■•''  -iN 

O   ^    T    A   It   I     0^"'"',    tf    *  Sf^Bari,£ 

J£5^S8$^5&*  ..-■&     '        f  ■      I,  °    £--?-    j0 

"'fiFMNT EXAC,  "^                                            V.i,-y           j"    .  J       >~        •   -- 

UafrZiltCteitK,.1   SSL                                                                -■'  'jW    C^>       •-'"   '^s 


i:    w 


'..^' 


FORT   FRONTENAC   AND   THE   ADJACENT   COUNTRY 

James  of  England  to  observe  the  treaty  of  neutrality  between 
England  and  France  ;  but  this  did  not  hinder  him  supplying  the 
Iroquois  with  arms  to  raid  the  French  and  secretly  advising 
them  "not  to  bury  the  war  hatchet, — just  to  hide  it  in  the 
grass,  and  stand  on  their  guard  to  begin  the  war  anew." 

Nor  did  the  treaty  of  neutrality  prevent  the  French  from 
raiding  Hudson  Bay  and  ordering  shot  in  cold  blood  any  French 
bushrover  who  dared  to  guide  the  English  traders  to  the  country 
of  the  Upper  Lakes. 

In  addition  to  English  influence  egging  on  the  Iroquois,  the 
treachery  of  the  Huron  chief,  The  Rat,  lashed  the  vengeance 


THE  YEAR  OF  THE  MASSACRE  165 

of  the  Five  Nations  to  a  fury.  He  had  come  clown  to  Fort 
Frontenac  to  aid  the  French.  He  was  told  that  the  French  had 
again  arranged  peace  with  the  Iroquois,  and  deputies  were  even 
now  on  their  way  from  the  Five  Nations. 

"Peace!"  The  old  Huron  chief  was  dumbfounded.  What 
were  these  fool  French  doing,  trusting  to  an  Iroquois  peace  ? 
"Ah,"  he  grunted,  "that  may  be  well";  and  he  withdrew 
without  revealing  a  sign  of  his  intentions.  Then  he  lay  in 
ambush  on  the  trail  of  the  deputies,  fell  on  the  Iroquois  peace 
messengers  with  fury,  slaughtered  half  the  band,  then  sent 
the  others  back  with  word  that  he  had  clone  this  by  order  of 
Denonville,  the  French  governor. 

"  There,"  grunted  The  Rat  grimly,  "  I  've  killed  the  peace 
for  them  !    We  '11  see  how  Onontio  gets  out  of  this  mess." 

Meanwhile  war  had  been  declared  between  England  and 
France.  The  Stuarts  had  been  dethroned.  France  was  support- 
ing the  exiled  monarch,  and  William  of  Orange  had  become 
king  of  England.  Iberville  and  Duluth  and  La  Motte  Cadillac, 
the  famous  fighters  of  Canada's  wildwood,  were  laying  plans 
before  the  French  Governor  for  the  invasion  and  conquest  of 
New  York  ;  and  New  York  was  preparing  to  defend  itself  by 
pouring  ammunition  and  firearms  free  of  cost  into  the  hands  of 
the  Iroquois.    Then  the  Iroquois  vengeance  fell. 

Between  the  night  and  morning  of  August  4  and  5,  in  1689, 
a  terrific  thunderstorm  had  broken  over  Montreal.  Amidst  the 
crack  of  hail  and  crash  of  falling  trees,  with  the  thunder  rever- 
berating from  the  mountain  like  cannonading,  whilst  the  fright- 
ened people  stood  gazing  at  the  play  of  lightning  across  their 
windows,  fourteen  hundred  Iroquois  warriors  landed  behind  Mon- 
treal, beached  their  canoes,  and  stole  upon  the  settlement.  What 
next  followed  beggars  description.  Nothing  else  like  it  occurs 
in  the  history  of  Canada.  For  years  this  summer  was  to  be 
known  as  "  the  Year  of  the  Massacre." 

Before  the  storm  subsided,  the  Iroquois  had  stationed  them- 
selves in  circles  round  every  house  outside  the  walls  of  Montreal. 
At  the  signal  of  a  whistle,  the  warriors  fell  on  the  settlement 


1 66 


CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


like  beasts  of  prey.  Neither  doors  nor  windows  were  fastened 
in  that  age,  and  the  people,  deep  in  sleep  after  the  vigil  of  the 
storm,  were  dragged  from  their  beds  before  they  were  well 
awake.  Men,  women,  and  children  fell  victims  to  such  ingenu- 
ity of  cruelty  as  only  savage  vengeance  could  conceive.    Children 


WILLIAM   OF   ORANGE 


were  dashed  to  pieces  before  their  parents'  eyes  ;  aged  parents 
tomahawked  before  struggling  sons  and  daughters  ;  fathers  held 
powerless  that  they  might  witness  the  tortures  wreaked  on  wives 
and  daughters.  Homes  which  had  heard  some  alarm  and  were 
on  guard  were  set  on  fire,  and  those  who  perished  in  the  flames 


FRONTENAC  RETURNS  1 67 

died  a  merciful  death  compared  to  those  who  fell  in  the  hands 
of  the  victors.  By  daybreak  two  hundred  people  had  been 
wantonly  butchered.  A  hundred  and  fifty  more  had  been  taken 
captives.  As  if  their  vengeance  could  not  be  glutted,  the  Iro- 
quois crossed  the  river  opposite  Montreal,  and,  in  full  sight  of 
the  fort,  weakly  garrisoned  and  paralyzed  with  fright,  spent  the 
rest  of  the  week,  day  and  night,  torturing  the  white  captives. 
By  night  victims  could  be  seen  tied  to  the  torture  stake  amid 
the  wreathing  flames,  with  the  tormentors  dancing  round  the 
camp  fire  in  maniacal  ferocity.  Denonville  was  simply  power- 
less. He  lost  his  head,  and  seemed  so  panic-stricken  that  he 
forbade  even  volunteer  bands  from  rallying  to  the  rescue.  For 
two  months  the  Iroquois  overran  Canada  unchecked.  Indeed, 
it  was  years  before  the  boldness  engendered  by  this  foray  be- 
came reduced  to  respect  for  French  authority.  Settlement  after 
settlement,  the  marauders  raided.  From  Montreal  to  Three 
Rivers  crops  went  up  in  flame,  and  the  terrified  habitants  came 
cowering  with  their  families  to  the  shelter  of  the  palisades. 

In  the  midst  of  this  universal  terror  came  the  country's 
savior.  Frontenac  had  been  recalled  because  he  quarreled  with 
the  intendant  and  he  quarreled  with  the  Jesuits  and  he  quar- 
reled with  the  fur  traders  ;  but  his  bitterest  enemies  did  not 
deny  that  he  could  put  the  fear  of  the  Lord  and  respect  for  the 
French  into  the  Iroquois'  heart.  Arbitrary  he  was  as  a  czar, 
but  just  always  !  To  be  sure  he  mended  his  fortunes  by  per- 
sonal fur  trade,  but  in  doing  so  he  cheated  no  man  ;  and  he 
worked  no  injustice,  and  he  wrought  in  all  things  for  the  last- 
ing good  of  the  country.  Homage  he  demanded  as  to  a  king, 
once  going  so  far  as  to  drive  the  Sovereign  Councilors  from  his 
presence  with  the  flat  of  a  sword  ;  but  he  firmly  believed  and 
he  had  publicly  proved  that  he  was  worthy  of  homage,  and  that 
the  men  who  are  forever  shouting  "liberty  —  liberty  and  the 
people's  rights,"  are  frequently  wolves  in  sheep's  clothing,  eat- 
ing out  the  vitals  of  a  nation's  prosperity. 

Here,  then,  was  the  haughty,  hot-headed,  aggressive  Frontenac, 
sent  back  in  his  old  age  to  restore  the  prestige  of  New  France, 


1 68  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

where  both  La  Barre  the  grafter,  and  Denonville  the  courteous 
Christian  gentleman,  had  failed. 

To  this  period  of  Iroquois  raids  belongs  one  of  the  most 
heroic  episodes  in  Canadian  life.  The  only  settlers  who  had 
not  fled  to  the  protection  of  the  palisaded  forts  were  the  grand 
old  seigniors,  the  new  nobility  of  New  France,  whose  mansions 
were  like  forts  in  themselves,  palisaded,  with  stone  bastions  and 
water  supply  and  yards  for  stock  and  mills  inside  the  walls. 
Here  the  seigniors,  wildwood  knights  of  a  wilderness  age,  held 
little  courts  that  were  imitations  of  the  Governor's  pomp  at  Que- 
bec. Sometimes  during  war  the  seignior's  wife  and  daughters 
were  reduced  to  plowing  in  the  fields  and  laboring  with  the 
women  servants  at  the  harvest ;  but  ordinarily  the  life  at  the 
seigniory  was  a  life  of  petty  grandeur,  with  such  style  as  the  back- 
woods afforded.  In  the  hall  or  great  room  of  the  manor  house 
was  usually  an  enormous  table  used  both  as  court  of  justice  by 
the  seignior  and  festive  board.  On  one  side  was  a  huge  fire- 
place with  its  homemade  benches,  on  the  other  a  clumsily  carved 
chiffonier  loaded  with  solid  silver.  In  the  early  days  the  seign- 
ior's bedstead  might  be  in  the  same  room,  —  an  enormous 
affair  with  panoplies  of  curtains  and  counterpanes  of  fur  rugs 
and  feather  mattresses,  so  high  that  it  almost  necessitated  a 
ladder.  But  in  the  matter  of  dress  the  rude  life  made  up  in 
style  what  it  lacked  in  the  equipments  of  a  grand  mansion. 

The  bishop's  description  of  the  women's  dresses  I  have  al- 
ready given,  though  at  this  period  the  women  had  added  to  the 
"  sins  "  of  bows  and  furbelows  and  frills,  which  the  bishop  de- 
plored, the  yet  more  heinous  error  of  such  enormous  hoops  that 
it  required  fine  maneuvering  on  the  part  of  a  grand  dame  to 
negotiate  the  door  of  the  family  coach ;  and  however  pompous 
the  seignior's  air,  it  must  have  suffered  temporary  eclipse  in 
that  coach  from  the  hoops  of  his  spouse  and  his  spouse's  daugh- 
ters. As  for  the  seignior,  when  he  was  not  dressed  in  buckskin, 
leading  bushrovers  on  raids,  he  appeared  magnificent  in  all  the 
grandeur  that  a  £20  wig  and  Spanish  laces  and  French  ruffles 


THE  HEROINE  OF  VERCHERES  169 

and  imported  satins  could  lend  his  portly  person  ;  and  if  the 
figure  were  not  portly,  one  may  venture  to  guess,  from  the  pic- 
tures of  stout  gentlemen  in  the  quilted  brocades  of  the  period, 
that  padding  made  up  what  nature  lacked. 

Such  a  seigniory  was  Vercheres,  some  twenty  miles  from 
Montreal,  on  the  south  side  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  M.  de  Ver- 
cheres was  an  officer  in  one  of  the  regiments,  and  chanced  to 
be  absent  from  home  during  October  of  1696,  doing  duty  at 
Quebec.  Madame  de  Vercheres  was  visiting  in  Montreal. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  fort  and  the  family  had  been  left 
in  charge  of  the  daughter,  Madeline,  at  this  time  only  fourteen 
years  of  age.  At  eight  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  October  22 
she  had  gone  four  hundred  paces  outside  the  fort  gates  when 
she  heard  the  report  of  musket  firing.  The  rest  of  the  story 
may  be  told  in  her  own  words  : 

I  at  once  saw  that  the  Iroquois  were  firing  at  our  settlers,  who  lived  near 
the  fort.  One  of  our  servants  call  out :  "  Fly,  Mademoiselle,  fly  !  The  Iro- 
quois are  upon  us  !  " 

Instantly  I  saw  some  forty-five  Iroquois  running  towards  me,  already 
within  pistol  shot.  Determined  to  die  rather  than  fall  in  their  hands,  I  ran 
for  the  fort,  praying  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  "  Holy  Mother,  save  me  !  Let 
me  perish  rather  than  fall  in  their  hands  !  "  Meanwhile  my  pursuers  paused 
to  fire  their  guns.  Bullets  whistled  past  my  ears.  Once  within  hearing  of 
the  fort,  I  shouted,  "  To  arms  !    To  arms  !  " 

There  were  but  two  soldiers  in  the  fort,  and  they  were  so  overcome  bv  fear 
that  they  ran  to  hide  in  the  bastion.  At  the  gates  I  found  two  women  wail- 
ing for  the  loss  of  their  husbands.  Then  I  saw  several  stakes  had  fallen 
from  the  palisades  where  enemies  could  gain  entrance  ;  so  I  seized  the  fallen 
planks  and  urged  the  women  to  give  a  hand  putting  them  back  in  their 
places.  Then  I  ran  to  the  bastion,  where  I  found  two  of  the  soldiers  light- 
ing a  fuse. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  "  I  demanded. 

"  Blow  up  the  fort,"  answered  one  cowardlv  wretch. 

"  Begone,  you  rascals,"  I  commanded,  putting  on  a  soldier's  helmet  and 
seizing  a  musket.  Then  to  my  little  brothers:  "  Let  us  fight  to  the  death  ! 
Remember  what  father  has  always  said,  —  that  gentlemen  are  born  to  shed 
their  blood  in  the  service  of  God  and  their  King." 

My  brothers  and  the  two  soldiers  kept  up  a  steady  fire  from  the  loop- 
holes.   I  ordered  the  cannon  fired  to  call  in  our  soldiers,  who  were  hunting: 


170 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


but  the  grief-stricken  women  inside  kept  wailing  so  loud  that  I  had  to  warn 
them  their  shrieks  would  betray  our  weakness  to  the  enemy.  While  I  was 
speaking  I  caught  sight  of  a  canoe  on  the  river.  It  was  Sieur  Pierre 
Fontaine,  with  his  family,  coming  to  visit  us.  I  asked  the  soldiers  to  go  out 
and  protect  their  landing,  but  they  refused.  Then  ordering  Laviolette,  our 
servant,  to  stand  sentry  at  the  gate,  I  went  out  myself,  wearing  a  soldier's 
helmet  and  carrying  a  musket.  I  left  orders  if  I  were  killed  the  gates  were 
to  be  kept  shut  and  the  fort  defended.  I  hoped  the  Iroquois  would  think 
this  a  ruse  on  my  part  to  draw  them  within  gunshot  of  our  walls.  That  was 
just  what  happened,  and  I  got  Pierre  Fontaine  and  his  family  safely  inside 
bv  putting  a  bold  face  on.  Our  whole  garrison  consisted  of  my  two  little 
brothers  aged  about  twelve,  one  servant,  two  soldiers,  one  old  habitant 
aged  eighty,  and  a  few  women  servants.  Strengthened  by  the  Fontaines, 
we  began  firing.  When  the  sun  went  clown  the  night  set  in  with  a  fearful 
'storm  of  northeast  wind  and  snow.  I  expected  the  Iroquois  under  cover 
of  the  storm.  Gathering  our  people  together,  I  said :  "  God  has  saved  us 
during  the  day.  Now  we  must  be  careful  for  the  night.  To  show  you  I 
am  not  afraid  to  take  my  part,  I  undertake  to  defend  the  fort  with  the  old 
man  and  a  soldier,  who  has  never  fired  a  gun.  You,  Pierre  Fontaine  and 
La  Bonte  and  Galet  (the  two  soldiers),  go  to  the  bastion  with  the  women 
and  children.  If  I  am  taken,  never  surrender  though  I  am  burnt  and  cut  to 
pieces  before  your  eyes  !  You  have  nothing  to  fear  if  you  will  make  some 
show  of  fight !  " 

I  posted  two  of  my  young  brothers  on  one  of  the  bastions,  the  old  man 
of  eighty  on  the  third,  and  myself  took  the  fourth.  Despite  the  whistling  of 
the  wind  we  kept  the  cry  "  All 's  well,*'  "  All  "s  well  *'  echoing  and  reechoing 
from  corner  to  corner.  One  would  have  imagined  the  fort  was  crowded  with 
soldiers,  and  the  Iroquois  afterwards  confessed  they  had  been  completely 
deceived :  that  the  vigilance  of  the  guard  kept  them  from  attempting  to 
scale  the  walls.  About  midnight  the  sentinel  at  the  gate  bastion  called  out, 
"  Mademoiselle  !   I  hear  something  !  " 

I  saw  it  was  our  cattle. 

"  Let  me  open  the  gates,"  urged  the  sentry. 

"  God  forbid,"  said  I  ;  "  the  savages  are  likely  behind,  driving  the 
animals  in." 

Nevertheless  I  did  open  the  gates  and  let  the  cattle  in,  my  brothers  stand- 
ing on  each  side,  ready  to  shoot  if  an  Indian  appeared. 

At  last  came  daylight ;  and  we  were  hopeful  for  aid  from  Montreal ;  but 
Marguerite  Fontaine,  being  timorous  as  all  Parisian  women  are,  begged  her 
husband  to  try  and  escape.  The  poor  husband  was  almost  distracted  as  she 
insisted,  and  lie  told  her  he  would  set  her  out  in  the  canoe  with  her  two 
sons,  who  could  paddle  it,  but  he  would  not  abandon  Mademoiselle  in  Ver- 
cheres.    I   had  been  twenty-four  hours  without  rest  or  food,  and  had  not 


INDIAN   RAID   AND  COUNTER-RAID 


I7I 


once  gone  from  the  bastion.  On  the  eighth  day  of  the  siege  Lieutenant  de 
La  Monnerie  reached  the  fort  during  the  night  with  forty  men. 

One  of  our  sentries  had  called  out,  "  Who  goes  ?  " 

I  was  dozing  with  my  head  on  a  table  and  a  musket  across  my  arm.  The 
sentry  said  there  were  voices  on  the  water.    I  called,  "  Who  are  you?" 

They  answered,  "  French  —  come  to  your  aid  ! r' 

1  went  down  to  the  bank,  saying :  "Sir,  but  you  are  welcome!  1  sur- 
render my  arms  to  you  !  " 

"  Mademoiselle,"  he  answered,  "  they  are  in  good  hands." 

I  forgot  one  incident.  On  the  day  of  the  attack  I  remembered  about 
one  in  the  afternoon  that  our  linen  was  outside  the  fort,  but  the  soldiers 
refused  to  go  out  for  it.  Armed  with  our  guns,  my  brothers  made  two  trips 
outside  the  walls  for  our  linen.  The  Iroquois  must  have  thought  it  a  trick 
to  lure  them  closer,  for  they  did  not  approach. 

It  need  scarcely  be  added  that  brave  mothers  make  brave 
sons,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  twenty-five  years  later,  when 
Madeline  Vercheres  had  become  the  wife  of  M.  de  La  Naudiere, 
her  own  life  was  saved  from  Abenaki  Indians  by  her  little  son, 
age  twelve. 

But  to  return  to  Count  Frontenac,  marching  up  the  steep 
streets  of  Quebec  to  Chateau  St.  Louis  that  October  evening 
of  1689,  amid  the  jubilant  shouts  of  friends  and  enemies,  Jesuit 
and  Recollet,  fur  trader  and  councilor,  —  the  haughty  Governor 
set  himself  to  the  task  of  not  only  crushing  the  Iroquois  but 
invading  and  conquering  the  land  of  the  English,  whom  he  be- 
lieved had  furnished  arms  to  the  Iroquois.  Now  that  war  had 
been  openly  declared  between  England  and  France,  Frontenac 
was  determined  on  a  campaign  of  aggression.  He  would  keep 
the  English  so  busy  defending  their  own  borders  that  they 
would  have  no  time  to  tamper  with  the  Indian  allies  of  the 
French  on  the  Mississippi. 

This  is  one  of  the  darkest  pages  of  Canada's  past.  War  is 
not  a  pretty  thing  at  any  time,  but  war  that  lets  loose  the 
bloodhounds  of  Indian  ferocity  leaves  the  blackest  scar  of  all. 

There  were  to  be  three  war  parties  :  one  from  Quebec  to 
attack  the  English  settlements  around   what   is   now    Portland, 


172 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


Maine  ;  a  second  from  Three  Rivers  to  lay  waste  the  border 
lands  of  New  Hampshire  ;  a  third  from  Montreal  to  assault 
the  English  and  Dutch  of  the  Upper  Hudson. 

The  Montrealers  set  out  in  midwinter  of  1690,  a  few  months 
after  Frontenac's  arrival,  led  by  the  Le  Moyne  brothers,  Ste. 
Helene  and  Maricourt  and  Iberville,  with  one  of  the  Le  Bers, 
and  D'Ailleboust,  nephew  of  the  first  D'Ailleboust  at  Montreal. 
The  raiders  consisted  of  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  men,  one 


5 


•"$-  ^"'Sjta^^i 


- 


ymJ 


QUEBEC,  1689 

hundred  Indian  converts  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  bushrovers, 
hardy,  supple,  inured  to  the  wilderness  as  to  native  air,  whites  and 
Indians  dressed  alike  in  blanket  coat,  hood  hanging  down  the 
back,  buckskin  trousers,  beaded  moccasins,  snowshoes  of  short 
length  for  forest  travel,  cased  musket  on  shoulder,  knife,  hatchet, 
pistols,  bullet  pouch  hanging  from  the  sashed  belt,  and  provi- 
sions in  a  blanket,  knapsack  fashion,  carried  on  the  shoulders. 

The  woods  lay  snow  padded,  silent,  somber.    Up  the  river  bed 
of  the  Richelieu,  over  the  rolling  drifts,  glided  the  bushrovers 


MASSACRE  AT  SCHENECTADY 


173 


Somewhere  on  the  headwaters  of  the  Hudson  the  Indians 
demanded  what  place  they  were  to  attack.  Iberville  answered, 
"Albany."  "  Humph,"  grunted  the  Indians  with  a  dry  smile  at 
the  camp  fire,  "  since  when  have  the  French  become  so  brave  ?  " 
A  midwinter  thaw  now  turned  the  snowy  levels  to  swimming 
lagoons,  where  snowshoes  were  useless,  and  the  men  had  to 
wade  knee-deep  day  after  day  through  swamps  of  ice  water. 
Then  came  one  of  those  sudden  changes,  —  hard  frost  with  a 
blinding  snowstorm.  Where  the  trail  forked  for  Albany  and 
Schenectady  it  was  decided  to  follow  the  latter,  and  about 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  on  the  8th  of  February,  the  bush- 
rovers  reached  a  hut  where  there  chanced  to  be  several  Mohawk 
squaws.  Crowding  round  the  chimney  place  to  dry  their  clothes 
now  stiff  with  ice,  the  bushrangers  learned  from  the  Indian 
women  that  Schenectady  lay  completely  unguarded.  There  had 
been  some  village  festival  that  day  among  the  Dutch  settlers. 
The  gates  at  both  ends  of  the  town  lay  wide  open,  and  as  if  in 
derision  of  clanger  from  the  far  distant  French,  a  snow  man  had 
been  mockingly  rolled  up  to  the  western  gate  as  sentry,  with  a 
sham  pipe  stuck  in  his  mouth.  The  Indian  rangers  harangued 
their  braves,  urging  them  to  wash  out  all  wrongs  in  the  blood 
of  the  enemy,  and  the  Le  Moyne  brothers  moved  from  man  to 
man,  giving  orders  for  utter  silence.  At  eleven  that  night, 
shrouded  by  the  snowfall,  the  bushrovers  reached  the  palisades 
of  Schenectady.  They  had  intended  to  defer  the  assault  till 
dawn,  but  the  cold  hastened  action,  and,  uncasing  their  mus- 
kets, they  filed  silently  past  the  snow  man  in  the  middle  of  the 
open  gate  and  encircled  the  little  village  of  fifty  houses.  When 
the  lines  met  at  the  far  gate,  completely  investing  the  town,  a 
wild  yell  rent  the  air!  Doors  were  hacked  down.  Indians  with 
tomahawks  stood  guard  outside  the  windows,  and  the  dastardly 
work  began,  —  as  gratuitous  a  butchery  of  innocent  people  as 
ever  the  Iroquois  perpetrated  in  their  worst  raids.  Two  hours 
the  massacre  lasted,  and  when  it  was  over  the  French  had,  to 
their  everlasting  discredit,  murdered  in  cold  blood  thirty-eight 
men  (among  them  the  poor  inoffensive  dominie),   ten  women, 


174 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


twelve  children ;  and  the  victors  held  ninety  captives.  To  the 
credit  of  Iberville  he  offered  life  to  one  Glenn  and  his  family, 
who  had  aided  in  ransoming  many  French  from  the  Iroquois, 
and  he  permitted  this  man  to  name  so  many  friends  that  the 
bloodthirsty  Indians  wanted  to  know  if  all  Schenectady  were  re- 
lated  to  this  white   man.    One   other  house   in   the   town  was 

spared,  —  that  of  a  widow  with  five 
children,  under  whose  roof  a  wounded 
Frenchman  lay.  For  the  rest,  Sche- 
nectady was  reduced  to  ashes,  the 
victors  harnessing  the  Dutch  farmers' 
horses  to  carry  off  the  plunder.  Of 
the  captives,  twenty-seven  men  and 
boys  were  carried  back  to  Quebec. 
The  other  captives,  mainly  women  and 
children,  were  given  to  the  Indians. 
Forty  livres  for  every  human  scalp 
were  paid  by  the  Sovereign  Council 
of  Quebec  to  the  raiders. 

The  record  of  the  raiders  led  from 
Three  Rivers  by  Francois  Hertel  was 
almost  the  same.  Setting  out  in 
January,  he  was  followed  by  twenty- 
five  French  and  twenty-five  Indians 
to  the  border  lands  between  Maine 
and  New  Hampshire.  The  end  of 
March  saw  the  bushrovers  outside 
the  little  village  of  Salmon  Falls. 
Thirty  inhabitants  were  tomahawked 
on  the  spot,  the  houses  burned,  and  one  hundred  prisoners  carried 
off ;  but  news  had  gone  like  wildfire  to  neighboring  settlements, 
and  Hertel  was  pursued  by  two  hundred  Englishmen.  He  placed 
his  bushrovers  on  a  small  bridge  across  Wooster  River  and  here 
held  the  pursuers  at  bay  till  darkness  enabled  him  to  escape. 

But  the  darkest  deed  of  infamy  was  perpetrated  by  the  third 
band  of  raiders,  —  a  deed  that  reveals  the  glories  of  war  as  they 


__/~v 


FRENCH   SOLDIER   OF   THE 
PERIOD 


THE  MASSACRE  AT  FORT  LOYAL 


!/5 


exist,  stripped  of  pageantry.  Portneuf  had  led  the  raiders  from 
Quebec,  and  he  was  joined  by  that  famous  leader  of  the  Abenaki 
Indians,  Baron  de  Saint-Castin,  from  the  border  lands  between 
Acadia  and  Maine.  Later,  when  Hertel  struck  through  the 
woods  with  some  of  his  followers,  Portneuf  s  men  numbered  five 
hundred.  With  these  he  attacked  Fort  Loyal,  or  what  is  now 
Portland,  Maine,  in  the  month  of  June.  The  fort  boasted  eight 
great  guns  and  one  hundred  soldiers.  Under  cover  of  the  guns 
Lieutenant  Clark  and  thirty  men  sallied  out  to  reconnoiter  the 
attacking  forces  ambushed  in  woods  round  a  pasturage.  At  a 
musket  crack  the  English  were  literally  cut  to  pieces,  four  men 
only  escaping  back  to  the  fort.  The  French  then  demanded  un- 
conditional surrender.  The  English  asked  six  days  to  consider. 
In  six  days  English  vessels  would  have  come  to  the  rescue. 
Secure,  under  a  bluff  of  the  ocean  cliff,  from  the  cannon  fire  of 
the  fort,  the  French  began  to  trench  an  approach  to  the  palisades. 
Combustibles  had  been  placed  against  the  walls,  when  the  Eng- 
lish again  asked  a  parley,  offering  to  surrender  if  the  French 
would  swear  by  the  living  God  to  conduct  them  in  safety  to  the 
nearest  English  post.  To  these  conditions  the  French  agreed. 
Whether  they  could  not  control  their  Indian  allies  or  had  not 
intended  to  keep  the  terms  matters  little.  The  English  had  no 
sooner  marched  from  the  fort  than,  with  a  wild  whoop,  the  Indians 
fell  on  men,  women,  and  children.  Some  were  killed  by  a  single 
blow,  others  reserved  for  the  torture  stake.  Only  four  English- 
men survived  the  onslaught,  to  be  carried  prisoners  to  Quebec. 
The  French  had  been  victorious  on  all  three  raids  ;  but  they 
were  victories  over  which  posterity  will  never  boast,  which  no 
writer  dare  describe  in  all  the  detail  of  their  horrors,  and  which 
leave  a  black  blot  on  the  escutcheon  of  Canada. 

It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  New  England  colonies 
would  let  such  raids  pass  unpunished.  The  destruction  ol  Sche- 
nectady had  been  bad  enough.  The  massacre  of  Salmon  Falls 
caused  the  New  Engianders  to  forget  their  jealousies  for  the 
once  and  to  unite  in  a  common  cause.    All  the  colonies  agreed 


176 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


to  contribute  men,  ships,  and  money  to  invade  New  France  by 
land  and  sea.  The  land  forces  were  placed  under  Winthrop  and 
Schuyler;  but  as  smallpox  disorganized  the  expedition  before 
it  reached  Lake  Champlain,  the  attack  by  land  had  little  other 
effect  than  to  draw  Frontenac  from  Quebec  down  to  Montreal, 
where  Captain  Schuyler,  with  Dutch  bushmen,  succeeded  in 
ravaging  the  settlements  and  killing  at  least  twenty  French. 

The  expedition  by  sea  was  placed  under  Sir  William  Phips 
of   Massachusetts,  —  a  man  who    was    the   very  antipodes    of 

Frontenac.  One  of  a 
poor  family  of  twenty- 
six  children,  Phips  had 
risen  from  being  a 
shepherd  boy  in  Maine 
to  the  position  of  ship's 
carpenter  in  Boston. 
Here,  among  the  har- 
bor folk,  he  got  wind 
of  a  Spanish  treasure 
ship  containing  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  dollars' 
worth  of  gold,  which 
had  been  sunk  off  the 
West  Indies.  Going  to 
England,  Phips  suc- 
ceeded in  interesting 
that  same  clique  of  courtiers  who  helped  Radisson  to  establish 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, — Albemarle  and  Prince  Rupert 
and  the  King ;  and  when,  with  the  funds  which  they  advanced, 
Phips  succeeded  in  raising  the  treasure  vessel,  he  received,  in 
addition  to  his  share  of  the  booty,  a  title  and  the  appointment 
as  governor  of  Massachusetts. 

Here,  then,  was  the  daring  leader  chosen  to  invade  New 
France.  Phips  sailed  first  for  Port  Royal,  which  had  in  late 
years  become  infested  with  French  pirates,  preying  on  Boston 
commerce.    Word  had  just  come  of  the  fearful  massacres  of 


SIR  WILLIAM   PHIPS 


BOSTON   ROUSED  TO  ACTION 


177 


colonists  at  Portland.  Boston  was  inflamed  with  a  spirit  of 
vengeance.  The  people  had  appointed  days  of  fasting  and  prayer 
to  invoke  Heaven's  blessing  on  their  war.  When  Phips  sailed 
into  Annapolis  Basin  with  his  vessels  and  seven  hundred  men 
in  the  month  of  May,  he  found  the  French  commander,  Meneval, 
ill  of  the  gout,  with  a  garrison  of  about  eighty  soldiers,  but  all 
the  cannon  chanced  to  be  dismounted.  The  odds  against  the 
French  did  not  permit  resistance.  Meneval  stipulated  for  an 
honorable  surrender,  —  all  property  to  be  respected  and  the 
garrison  to  be  sent  to  some  French  port ;  but  no  sooner  were 
the  English  in  possession  than,  like  the  French  at  Portland,  they 
broke  the  pledge.  There  was  no  massacre  as  in  Maine,  but 
plunderers  ran  riot,  seizing  everything  on  which  hands  could 
be  laid,  ransacking  houses  and  desecrating  the  churches;  and 
sixty  of  the  leading  people,  including  Meneval  and  the  priests, 
were  carried  off  as  prisoners.  Leaving  one  English  flag  flying, 
Phips  sailed  home. 

Indignation  at  Boston  had  been  fanned  to  fury,  for  now  all 
the  details  of  the  butchery  at  Portland  were  known  ;  and  Phips 
found  the  colony  mustering  a  monster  expedition  to  attack  the 
very  stronghold  of  French  power,  —  Quebec  itself.  England 
could  afford  no  aid  to  her  colonies,  but  thirty-two  merchant 
vessels  and  frigates  had  been  impressed  into  the  service,  some 
of  them  carrying  as  many  as  forty-four  cannon.  Artisans, 
sailors,  soldiers,  clerks,  all  classes  had  volunteered  as  fighters, 
to  the  number  of  twenty-five  hundred  men ;  but  there  was 
one  thing  lacking,  —  they  had  no  pilot  who  knew  the  St.  Law- 
rence. Full  of  confidence  born  of  inexperience,  the  fleet  set  sail 
on  the  9th  of  August,  commanded  again  by  Phips. 

Time  was  wasted  ravaging  the  coasts  of  Gaspe,  holding  long- 
winded  councils  of  war,  arguing  in  the  commander's  stateroom 
instead  of  drilling  on  deck.  Three  more  weeks  were  wasted 
poking  about  the  lower  St.  Lawrence,  picking  up  chance  vessels 
off  Tadoussac  and  Anticosti.  Among  the  prize  vessels  taken 
near  Anticosti  was  one  of  Jolliet's,  bearing  his  wife  and  mother- 
in-law.    The  ladies  delighted  the  hearts  of  the  Puritans  by  the 


1 78 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


news  that  not  more  than  one  hundred  men  garrisoned  Quebec  ; 
but  Phips  was  reckoning  without  his  host,  and  his  host  was 
Frontenac.    Besides,  it  was  late  in  the  season  —  the  middle  of 

October  —  before  the 
English  fleet  rounded 
the  Island  of  Orleans 
and  faced  the  Citadel  of 
Quebec. 

Indians  had  carried 
word  to  the  city  that  an 
Englishwoman,  taken 
prisoner  in  their  raids, 
had  told  them  more  than 
thirty  vessels  had  sailed 
from  Boston  to  invade 
New  France.  Frontenac 
was  absent  in  Montreal. 
Quickly  the  commander 
at  Quebec  sent  coureurs 
with  warning  to  Fronte- 
nac, and  then  set  about 
casting  up  barricades  in 
the  narrow  streets  that 
led  from  Lower  to  Upper 
Town. 

Frontenac  could  not 
credit  the  news.  Had  he 
not  heard  here  in  Mon- 
treal from  Indian  cou- 
reurs how  the  English 
overland  expedition  lay 
rotting  of  smallpox  near 
Lake  Champlain,  such  pitiable  objects  that  the  Iroquois  refused 
to  join  them  against  the  French  ?  New  France  now  numbered  a 
population  of  twelve  thousand  and  could  muster  three  thousand 
fighting  men  ;  and  though  the  English  colonies  numbered  twenty 


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COUNT   FRONTENAC 

(From  a  statue  at  Quebec) 


QUEBEC   BESIEGED  179 

thousand  people,  how  could  they,  divided  by  jealousies,  send  an 
invading  army  of  twenty-seven  hundred,  as  the  rumor  stated  ? 
Frontenac,  grizzled  old  warrior,  did  not  credit  the  news,  but,  all 
the  same,  he  set  out  amid  pelting  rains  by  boat  for  Quebec.  Half- 
way to  Three  Rivers  more  messengers  brought  him  word  that 
the  English  fleet  were  now  advancing  from  Tadoussac.  He  sent 
back  orders  for  the  commander  at  Montreal  to  rush  the  bush- 
rovers  down  to  Quebec,  and  he  himself  arrived  at  the  Citadel 
just  as  the  Le  Moyne  brothers  anchored  below  Cape  Diamond 
from  a  voyage  to  Hudson  Bay.  Maricourt  Le  Moyne  reported 
how  he  had  escaped  past  the  English  fleet  by  night,  and  it 
would  certainly  be  at  Quebec  by  daybreak. 

Scouts  rallied  the  bushrangers  on  both  sides  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  Quebec's  aid.  Frontenac  bade  them  guard  the 
outposts  and  not  desert  their  hamlets,  while  Ste.  Helene  and 
the  other  Le  Moynes  took  command  of  the  sharpshooters  in 
Lower  Town,  scattering  them  in  hiding  along  the  banks  of  the 
St.  Charles  and  among  the  houses  facing  the  St.  Lawrence  below 
Castle  St.  Louis. 

Sure  enough,  at  daybreak  on  Monday,  October  16,  sail  after 
sail,  thirty-four  in  all,  rounded  the  end  of  Orleans  Island  and 
took  up  position  directly  opposite  Quebec  City.  It  was  a  cold, 
wet  autumn  morning.  Fog  and  rain  alternately  chased  in  gray 
shadows  across  the  far  hills,  and  above  the  mist  of  the  river 
loomed  ominous  the  red-gray  fort  which  the  English  had  come 
to  capture.  Castle  St.  Louis  stood  where  Chateau  Frontenac 
stands  to-day  ;  and  what  is  now  the  promenade  of  a  magnificent 
terrace  was  at  that  time  a  breastwork  of  cannon  extending  on 
down  the  sloping  hill  to  the  left  as  far  as  the  ramparts.  In  fact, 
the  cannon  of  that  period  were  more  dangerous  than  they  are 
to-day,  for  long-range  missiles  have  rendered  old-time  fortifica- 
tions adapted  for  close-range  fighting  almost  useless  ;  and  the 
cannon  of  Upper  Town,  Quebec,  that  October  morning  swept 
the  approach  to  three  sides  of  the  fort,  fating  the  St.  Charles, 
opposite  Point  Levis  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  where  it  curves  back 
on  itself;  and  the  fourth  side  was  sheer  wall  —  invulnerable. 


i  So 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


With  a  rattling  of  anchor  chains  and  a  creaking  of  masts  the 
great  sails  of  the  English  fleet  were  lowered,  and  a  little  boat 
put  out  at  ten  o'clock  under  flag  of  truce  to  meet  a  boat  half- 
way from  Lower  Town.    Phips'  messenger  was  conducted  blind- 


CASTLE  ST.  LOUIS 

fold  up  the  barricaded  streets  leading  to  Castle  St.  Louis  ;  and 
the  gunners  had  been  instructed  to  clang  their  muskets  on  the 
stones  to  give  the  impression  of  great  numbers.  Suddenly  the 
bandage  was  taken  from  the  man's  eyes  and  he  found  himself 
in  a  great  hall,  standing  before  the  august  presence  of  Frontenac, 
surrounded  by  a  circle  of  magnificently  dressed  officers.  The 
New  Englander  delivered  his  message,  —  Phips'  letter  demand- 
ing surrender:  "Your  prisoners,  your  persons,  your  estates  .  .  . 
and  should  you  refuse,  I  am  resolved  by  tJte  help  of  God,  in  whom 
I  trust,  to  revenge  by  force  of  amis  all  our  wrongs."  .  .  .  As  the 
reading  of  the  letter  was  finished  the  man  looked  up  to  see  an 
insolent  smile  pass  round  the  faces  of  Frontenac's  officers,  one 
of  whom  superciliously  advised  hanging  the  bearer  of  such  inso- 
lence without  waste  of  time.  The  New  Englander  pulled  out 
his  watch  and  signaled  that  he  must  have  Frontenac's  answer 
within  an  hour.  The  haughty  old  Governor  pretended  not  to 
see  the  motion,  and  then,  with  a  smile  like  ice,  made  answer  in 


PHIPS  AND  FRONTENAC  iSi 

words  that  have  become  renowned  :  "I  shall  not  keep  you  waiting 
so  long!  Tell  your  General  I  do  not  recognize  King  William! 
I  know  no  king  of  England  but  King  James!  Does  your 
General  suppose  that  these  brave  gentlemen  "-—pointing  to  his 
officers  —  "would  consent  to  trust  a  man  who  broke  his  word 
at  Port  Royal  ?" 

As  the  shout  of  applause  died  away,  the  trembling  New  Eng- 
lander  asked  Frontenac  if  he  would  put  his  answer  in  writing. 

"  No,"  thundered  the  old  Governor,  never  happier  than  when 
fighting,  "  I  will  answer  your  General  with  my  cannon  !  I  shall 
teach  him  that  a  man  of  my  rank"  —  with  covert  sneer  at 
Phips'  origin,  "is  not  to  be  summoned  in  such  rude  fashion! 
Let  him  do  his  best!    I  shall  do  mine  ! " 

It  was  now  the  turn  of  the  English  to  be  amazed.  This  was 
not  the  answer  they  had  expected  from  a  fort  weakly  garrisoned 
by  a  hundred  men.    If  they  had  struck  and  struck  quickly,  they 


ATTACK   ON   QUEBEC,  1690 


might  yet  have  won  the  day  ;  but  all  Monday  passed  in  futile 
arguments  and  councils  of  war,  and  on  Tuesday,  the  17th, 
towards  night,  was  heard  wild  shouting  within  Quebec  walls. 

"  My  faith,  Messieurs  !"  exclaimed  one  of  the  French  prisoners 
aboard   Phips'  ship;  "now  you  have  lost  your  chance!    Those 


182  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

are  the  coureurs  de  bois  from  Montreal  and  the  bushrovers  of 
the  Pays  d'en  Haut,  eight  hundred  strong." 

The  news  at  last  spurred  Phips  to  action.  All  that  night  the 
people  of  Quebec  could  hear  the  English  drilling,  and  shouting 
"God save  King  William  !  "  with  beat  of  drum  and  trumpet  calls 
that  set  the  echoes  rolling  from  Cape  Diamond  ;  and  on  the 
1 8th  small  boats  landed  fourteen  hundred  men  to  cross  the  St. 
Charles  River  and  assault  the  Lower  Town,  while  the  four  largest 
ships  took  up  a  position  to  cannonade  the  city.  It  was  four  in 
the  afternoon  before  the  soldiers  had  been  landed  amid  pepper- 
ing bullets  from  the  Le  Moyne  bushrovers.  Only  a  few  cannon 
shots  were  fired,  and  they  did  no  damage  but  to  kill  an  urchin 
of  the  Upper  Town. 

Firing  began  in  earnest  on  the  morning  of  October  19.  The 
river  was  churned  to  fury  and  the  reverberating  echoes  set  the 
rocks  crashing  from  Cape  Diamond,  but  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible for  the  English  to  shoot  high  enough  to  damage  the  upper 
fort.  It  was  easy  for  the  French  to  shoot  down,  and  great 
wounds  gaped  from  the  hull  of  Phips'  ship,  while  his  masts  went 
over  decks  in  flame,  flag  and  all.  The  tide  drifted  the  admiral's 
flag  on  shore.  The  French  rowed  out,  secured  the  prize,  and  a 
jubilant  shout  roared  from  Lower  Town,  to  be  taken  up  and 
echoed  and  reechoed  from  the  Castle !  For  two  more  days 
bombs  roared  in  midair,  plunging  through  the  roofs  of  houses  in 
Lower  Town  or  ricochetting  back  harmless  from  the  rock  wall 
below  Castle  St.  Louis.  At  the  St.  Charles  the  land  forces 
were  fighting  blindly  to  effect  a  crossing,  but  the  Le  Moyne 
bushrovers  lying  in  ambush  repelled  every  advance,  though  Ste. 
Helene  had  fallen  mortally  wounded.  On  the  morning  of  the 
2 1st  the  French  could  hardly  believe  their  senses.  The  land 
forces  had  vanished  during  the  darkness  of  a  rain)'  night,  and 
ship  after  ship,  sail  after  sail,  was  drifting  downstream  —  was 
it  possible  ?  —  in  retreat.  Another  week's  bombarding  would 
have  reduced  Quebec  to  flame  and  starvation ;  but  another 
week  would  have  exposed  Phips'  fleet  to  wreckage  from  winter 
weather,  and  he  had  drifted   down  to  Isle  Orleans,  where  the 


RETREAT  OF  THE  ENGLISH  183 

dismantled  fleet  paused  to  rig  up  fresh  masts.  It  was  Madame 
Jolliet  who  suggested  to  the  Puritan  commander  an  exchange 
of  the  prisoners  captured  at  Port  Royal  with  the  English  from 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire  held  in  Quebec.  She  was  sent 
ashore  by  Phips  and  the  exchange  was  arranged.  Winter  gales 
assailed  the  English  fleet  as  it  passed  Anticosti,  and  what  with 
the  wrecked  and  wounded,  Phips'  loss  totaled  not  less  than  a 
thousand  men. 

Frontenac  had  been  back  in  Canada  only  a  year,  and  in  that 
time  he  had  restored  the  prestige  of  French  power  in  America. 
The  Iroquois  were  glad  to  sue  for  peace,  and  his  bitterest  ene- 
mies, the  Jesuits,  joined  the  merrymakers  round  the  bonfires  of 
acclaim  kindled  in  the  old  Governor's  honor  as  the  English  re- 
treated, and  the  joy  bells  pealed  out,  and  processions  surged 


CASTLE  ST.  LOUIS,  QUEBEC 

shouting  through  the  streets  of  Quebec  !  From  Hudson  Bay  to 
the  Mississippi,  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Lake  Superior  and  the 
land  of  the  Sioux,  French  power  reigned  supreme.  Only  Port 
Nelson,  high  up  on  the  west  coast  of  Hudson  Bay,  remained  un- 
subdued, draining  the  furs  of  the  prairie  tribes  to  England  away 
from  Quebec.  Iberville  had  captured  it  in  the  fall  of  1694,  at 
the  cost  of  his  brother  Chateauguay's  life  ;  but  when  Iberville 
departed  from  Hudson  Bay,  English  men-of-war  had  come  out  in 
1696  and  wrested  back  this  most  valuable  of  all  the  fur  posts. 
It  was  now  determined  to  drive  the  English  forever  from  Hud- 
son Bay.    Le  Moyne  d'Iberville  was  chosen  for  the  task. 

April,  1697,  Serigny  Le  Moyne  was  dispatched  from  France 
with  five  men-of-war  to  be  placed  under  the  command  of  Iber- 
ville at  Placentia,  Newfoundland,   whence  he  was  "  to  proceed 


184 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


to  Hudson  Bay  and  to  leave  not  a  vestige  of  the  English  in  the 
North."  The  frigates  left  Newfoundland  July  8.  Three  weeks 
later  they  were  crushing  through  the  ice  jam  of  Hudson  Straits. 
Iberville  commanded  the  Pelican  with  two  hundred  and  fifty 
men.  Bienville,  a  brother,  was  on  the  same  ship.  Serigny  com- 
manded the  Palmier,  and  there  were  three  other  frigates,  the 


PLAN  OF  QUEBEC  (after  Franquelin,  1683) 

Profound,  the  Violent,  the  Wasp.  Ice  locked  round  the  fleet  at 
the  west  end  of  Hudson  Straits,  and  fog  lay  so  thick  there  was 
nothing  visible  of  any  ship  but  the  masthead.  For  eighteen 
days  they  lay,  crunched  and  rammed  and  separated  by  the  ice 
drive,  till  on  August  25,  early  in  the  morning,  the  fog  suddenly 
lifted.    Iberville  saw  that  Scrigny's  ship  had  been  carried  back 


IBERVILLE'S  GALLANT  SEA  FIGHT  185 

in  the  straits.  The  JJrasf>  and  Violent  were  not  to  be  seen,  but 
straight  ahead,  locked  in  the  ice,  stood  the  Profound,  and  beside 
the  French  vessel  three  English  frigates,  the  Hampshire,  the 
Peering,  the  Hudson's  Bay,  on  their  annual  voyage  to  Nelson  ! 
A  lane  of  water  opened  before  Iberville.  Like  a  bird  the  Pel- 
ican spread  her  wings  to  the  wind  and  fled. 

September  3  Iberville  sighted  Port  Nelson,  and  for  two  days 
cruised  the  offing,  scanning  the  sea  for  the  rest  of  his  fleet. 
Early  on  September  5  the  sails  of  three  vessels  heaved  and  rose 
above  the  watery  horizon.  Never  doubting  these  were  his  own 
ships,  Iberville  signaled.  There  was  no  answer.  A  sailor  scram- 
bled to  the  masthead  and  shouted  down  terrified  warning.  These 
were  not  the  French  ships  !  They  were  the  English  frigates 
bearing  straight  down  on  the  single  French  vessel  commanded 
by  Iberville  ! 

On  one  side  was  the  enemy's  fort,  on  the  other  the  enemy's 
fleet  coming  over  the  waves  before  a  clipping  wind,  all  sails  set. 
Of  Iberville's  crew  forty  men  were  ill  of  scurvy.  Twenty-five 
had  gone  ashore  to  reconnoiter.  He  had  left  one  hundred  and 
fifty  fighting  men.  Amid  a  rush  of  orders,  ropes  were  stretched 
across  decks  for  handhold,  cannon  were  unplugged,  and  the 
batterymen  below  decks  stripped  themselves  for  the  hot  work 
ahead.  The  soldiers  assembled  on  decks,  sword  in  hand,  and  the 
Canadian  bushrovers  stood  to  the  fore,  ready  to  leap  across  the 
enemy's  decks. 

By  nine  in  the  morning  the  ships  were  abreast,  and  roaring 
cannonades  from  the  English  cut  the  decks  of  the  Pelican  to 
kindling  wood  and  set  the  masts  in  flame.  At  the  same  instant 
one  fell  blast  of  musketry  mowed  down  forty  French  ;  but  Iber- 
ville's batterymen  below  decks  had  now  ceased  to  pour  a  stream 
of  fire'  into  the  English  hulls.  The  odds  were  three  to  one,  and 
for  four  hours  the  battle  raged,  the  English  shifting  and  sheer- 
ing to  lock  in  death  grapple,  Iberville's  sharpshooters  peppering 
the  decks  of  the  foe. 

It  had  turned  bitterly  cold.  The  blood  on  the  decks  became 
ice,  and  each  roll  of  the  sea  sent  wounded  and  dead  weltering 


iS6 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


from  rail  to  rail.  Such  holes  had  been  torn  in  the  hulls  of  both 
English  and  French  ships  that  the  gunners  below  decks  were 
literally  looking  into  each  other's  smoke-grimmed  faces.  Sud- 
denly all  hands  paused.  A  frantic  scream  cleft  the  air.  The 
vessels  were  careening  in  a  tempestuous  sea,  for  the  great  ship 
Hampshire  had  refused  to  answer  to  the  wheel,  had  lurched, 
had  sunk,  —  sunk  swift  as  lead  amid  hiss  of    flames  into  the 


LANDING   OF   IBERVILLE'S   MEN   AT   PORT  NELSON 
(After  La  Potherie) 

roaring  sea  !  Not  a  soul  of  her  two  hundred  and  fifty  men 
escaped.  The  frigate  Hudson's  Bay  surrendered  and  the  Deer- 
ing  fled.    Iberville  was  victor. 

But  a  storm  now  broke  in  hurricane  gusts  over  the  sea.  Iber- 
ville steered  for  land,  but  waves  drenched  the  wheel  at  every 
wash,  and,  driving  before  the  storm,  the  Pelican  floundered  in 
the  sands  a  few  miles  from  Nelson.  All  lifeboats  had  been 
shot  away.  In  such  a  sea  the  Canadian  canoes  were  useless. 
The  shattered   masts  were   tied   in  four-sided   racks.    To   these 


NELSON    SURRENDERS 


I87 


Iberville  had  the  wounded  bound,  and  the  crew  plunged  for  the 
shore.  Eighteen  men  perished  going  ashore  in  the  darkness. 
On  land  were  two  feet  of  snow.  No  sooner  did  the  French 
castaways  build  fires  to  warm  their  benumbed  limbs  than  bul- 
lets whistled  into  camp.  Governor  Bayly  of  Port  Nelson  had 
sent  out  his  sharpshooters.  Luckily  Iberville's  other  ships  now 
joined  him,  and,  mustering  his  forces,  the  dauntless  French  leader 
marched  against  the  fort.    Storm  had  permitted  the  French  to 


i\\ 


CAPTURE   OF   FORT   NELSON    BY  THE   FRENCH 
(After  La  Potherie) 

land  their  cannon  undetected.  Trenches  were  cast  up,  and  three 
times  Serigny  Le  Moyne  was  sent  to  demand  surrender. 

"The  French  are  desperate,"  he  urged.  "They  must  take 
the  fort  or  perish  of  want,  and  if  you  continue  the  fight  there 
will  be  no  mercy  given." 

The  Hudson's  Bay  people  capitulated  and  were  permitted  to 
march  out  with  arms,  bag  and  baggage.  An  English  ship  car- 
ried the  refugees  home  to  the  Thames. 

The  rest  of  Iberville's  career  is  the  story  of  colonizing  the 
Mississippi.    He   was   granted   a  vast   seigniory  on   the   Bay  of 


l88  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Chaleur,  and  in  1699  given  a  title.  On  his  way  from  the  Louisi- 
ana colony  to  France  his  ship  had  paused  at  Havana.  Here 
Iberville  contracted  yellow  fever  and  died  while  yet  in  the  prime 
of  his  manhood,  July  9,  1706. 

After  the  victory  on  Hudson  Bay  the  French  were  supreme 
in  America  and  Frontenac  supreme  in  New  France.  The  old 
white-haired  veteran  of  a  hundred  wars  became  the  idol  of  Que- 
bec. Friends  and  enemies,  Jesuits  and  Recollets,  paid  tribute 
to  his  worth.  In  November  of  1698  the  Governor  passed  from 
this  life  in  Castle  St.  Louis  at  the  good  old  age  of  seventy-eight. 
He  had  demonstrated  —  demonstrated  in  action  so  that  his 
enemies  acknowledged  the  fact  —  that  the  sterner  virtues  of 
the  military  chieftain  go  farther  towards  the  making  of  great 
nationhood  than  soft  sentiments  and  religious  emotionalism. 


CHAPTER  X 

FROM  1698  TO  1713 

While  Frontenac  was  striking  terror  into  the  heart  of  New- 
England  with  his  French  Canadian  bushrovers,  the  life  of  the 
people  went  on  in  the  same  grooves.  Spite  of  a  dozen  raids  on 
the  Iroquois  cantons,  there  was  still  danger  from  the  warriors 
of  the  Mohawk,  but  the  Iroquois  braves  had  found  a  new  stamp- 
ing ground.  Instead  of  attacking  Canada  they  now  crossed  west- 
ward to  war  on  the  allies  of  the  French,  the  tribes  of  the  Illinois 
and  the  Mississippi ;  and  with  them  traveled  their  liege  friends, 
English  traders  from  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia. 

The  government  of  Canada  continued  to  be  a  despotism,  pure 
and  simple.  The  Supreme  Council,  consisting  of  the  governor, 
the  intendant,  the  bishop,  and  at  different  times  from  three  to 
twelve  councilors,  stood  between  the  people  and  the  King  of 
France,  transmitting  the  King's  will  to  the  people,  the  people's 
wants  to  the  King ;  and  the  laws  enacted  by  the  council  ranged 
all  the  way  from  criminal  decrees  to  such  petty  regulations  as 
a  modern  city  wardman  might  pass.  Laws  enacted  to  meet 
local  needs,  but  subject  to  the  veto  of  an  absent  ruler,  who  knew 
absolutely  nothing  of  local  needs,  exhibited  all  the  absurdities 
to  be  expected.  The  King  of  France  desires  the  Sovereign 
Council  to  discourage  the  people  from  using  horses,  which  are 
supposed  to  cause  laziness,  as  "it  is  needful  the  inhabitants  keep 
up  their  snowshoe  travel  so  necessary  in  their  wars."  "  If  in 
two  years  the  numbers  of  horses  do  not  decrease,  the}'  are  to  be 
killed  for  meat."  Then  comes  a  law  that  reflects  the  presence 
of  the  bishop  at  the  governing  board.  Horses  have  become  the 
pride  of  the  country  beaux,  and  the  gay  be-ribboned  carrioles 
are  the  distraction  of  the  village  cure.  "  Men  are  forbidden  to 
gallop  their  horses  within  a  third  of  a  mile  from  the  church  on 

1 89 


190  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Sundays."  New  laws,  regulations,  arrests,  are  promulgated  by 
the  public  crier,  "  crying  up  and  down  the  highway  to  sound 
of  trumpet  and  drum,"  chest  puffed  out  with  self-importance, 
gold  braid  enough  on  the  red-coated  regalia  to  overawe  the 
simple  habitants.  Though  the  companies  holding  monopoly 
over  trade  yearly  change,  monopoly  is  still  all-powerful  in  New 
France,  —  so  all  pervasive  that  in  1 74 1 ,  in  order  to  prevent  smug- 
gling to  defraud  the  Company  of  the  Indies,  it  is  enacted  that 
"people  using  chintz-covered  furniture"  must  upholster  their 
chairs  so  that  the  stamp  "  La  Cie  des  Indes  "  will  be  visible  to 
the  inspector.  The  matter  of  money  is  a  great  trouble  to  New 
France.  Beaver  is  coin  of  the  realm  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  and 
though  this  beaver  is  paid  for  in  French  gold,  the  precious 
metal  almost  at  once  finds  its  way  back  to  France  for  goods  ;  so 
that  the  colony  is  without  coin.  Government  cards  are  issued 
as  coin,  but  as  Europe  will  not  accept  card  money,  the  result  is 
that  gold  still  flows  from  New  France,  and  the  colony  is  flooded 
with  paper  money  worthless  away  from  Quebec. 

As  of  old,  the  people  may  still  plead  their  own  cases  in  law- 
suits before  the  Sovereign  Council,  but  now  the  privileges  of 
caste  and  class  and  feudalism  begin  to  be  felt,  and  it  is  enacted 
that  gentlemen  may  plead  their  own  cases  before  the  council 
only  "  when  wearing  their  swords."  Young  men  are  urged  to 
qualify  as  notaries.  In  addition  to  the  titleof  "Sieur,"  baronies  are 
created  in  Canada,  foremost  among  them  that  of  the  Le  Moynes 
of  Montreal.  The  feudal  seignior  now  has  his  coat  of  arms  em- 
blazoned on  the  church  pew  where  he  worships,  on  his  coach 
door,  and  on  the  stone  entrance  to  his  mansion.  The  habitants 
are  compelled  to  grind  their  wheat  at  his  mill,  to  use  his  great 
bake  oven,  to  patronize  his  tannery.  The  seigniorial  mansion 
itself  is  taking  on  more  of  pomp.  Cherry  and  mahogany  furni- 
ture have  replaced  homemade,  and  the  rough-cast  walls  are  now 
covered  with  imported  tapestries. 

Not  gently  does  the  Sovereign  Council  deal  with  delinquents. 
In  1735  it  is  enacted  of  a  man  who  suicided,  "that  the  corpse 
be  tied  to  a  cart,  dragged  on  a  hurdle,  head  down,  face  to  ground, 


PETTY   REGULATIONS  AND   BLUE   LAWS 


K)l 


through  the  streets  of  the  town,  to  be  hung  up  by  the  feet,  an 
object  of  derision,  then  cast  into  the  river  in  default  of  a  cess- 
pool." Criminals  who  evade  punishment  by  flight  are  to  he- 
hanged  in  effigy.  Montreal  citizens  are  ordered  to  have  their 
chimneys  cleaned  every  month  and  their  houses  provided  with 
ladders.  Also  "the  inhabitants  of  Montreal  must  not  allow 
their  pigs  to  run  in  the  street,"  and  they  "are  forbidden  to 
throw  snowballs  at  each  other,"  and  — a  regulation  which  people 
who  know  Montreal  winters  will  appreciate  —  "  they  are  ordered 


CONTEMPORARY  MAP  (after  La  Hontan,  1689) 
(The  line  shows  the  French  idea  of  the  territory  under  English  control) 

to  make  paths  through  the  snow  before  their  houses,"   —to  all 
which  petty  regulations  did  royalty  subscribe  sign  manual. 


The  Treaty  of  Ryswick  closed  the  war  between  France  and 
England  the  year  before  Frontenac  died,  but  it  was  not  known 
in  Canada  till  1698.  As  far  as  Canada  was  concerned  it  was 
no  peace,  barely  a  truce.  Each  side  was  to  remain  in  pos- 
session of  what  it  held  at  the  time  of  the  treat)',  which  meant 
that  France  retained  all  Hudson  Bay  but  one  small  fort.  Though 
the  English  of  Boston  had  captured  Port   Renal,  they  had  left 


IQ2  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

no  sign  of  possession  but  their  flag  flying  over  the  tenantless 
barracks.  The  French  returned  from  the  woods,  tore  the  flag 
down,  and  again  took  possession  ;  so  that,  by  the  Treaty  of  Rys- 
wick,  Acadia  too  went  back  under  French  rule. 

Indeed,  matters  were  worse  than  before  the  treaty,  for  there 
could  be  no  open  war ;  but  when  English  settlers  spreading  up 
from  Maine  met  French  traders  wandering  down  from  Acadia, 
there  was  the  inevitable  collision,  and  it  was  an  easy  trick  for 
the  rivals  to  stir  up  the  Indians  to  raid  and  massacre  and  indis- 
criminate butchery.  For  Indian  raids  neither  country  would  be 
responsible  to  the  other.  The  story  belongs  to  the  history  of 
the  New  England  frontier  rather  than  to  the  record  of  Canada. 
It  is  a  part  of  Canada's  past  which  few  French  writers  tell  and 
all  Canadians  would  fain  blot  out,  but  which  the  government 
records  prove  beyond  dispute.  Indian  warfare  is  not  a  thing  of 
grandeur  at  its  best,  but  when  it  degenerates  into  the  braining 
of  children,  the  bayoneting  of  women,  the  mutilation  of  old  men, 
it  is  a  horror  without  parallel ;  and  the  amazing  thing  is  that 
the  white  men,  who  painted  themselves  as  Indians  and  helped 
to  wage  this  war,  were  so  sure  they  were  doing  God's  work  that 
they  used  to  kneel  and  pray  before  beginning  the  butchery.  To 
understand  it  one  has  to  go  back  to  the  Middle  Ages  in  imagina- 
tion. New  France  was  violently  Catholic,  New  England  violently 
Protestant.  Bigotry  ever  looks  out  through  eyes  of  jaundiced 
hatred,  and  in  destroying  what  they  thought  was  a  false  faith, 
each  side  thought  itself  instrument  of  God.  As  for  the  French 
governors  behind  the  scenes,  who  pulled  the  strings  that  let 
loose  the  helldogs  of  Indian  war,  they  were  but  obeying  the 
kingcraft  of  a  royal  master,  who  would  use  Indian  warfare  to 
add  to  his  domain. 

"  The  English  have  sent  us  presents  to  drive  the  Black 
Gowns  away,"  declared  the  Iroquois  in  1702  regarding"  the 
French  Jesuits.  "You  did  well,"  writes  the  King  of  France  to 
his  Viceroy  in  Quebec,  "  to  urge  the  Abenakis  of  Acadia  to 
raid  the  English  of  Boston."    The  Treaty  of  Ryswick  became 


MASSACRE  OF  DEERFIELD 


19; 


known  at  Quebec  towards  the  end  of  1698.  The  border  war- 
fare of  ravage  and  butchery  had  begun  by  1701,  the  English 
giving  presents  to  the  Iroquois  to  attack  the  French  of  the 
Illinois,  the  French  giving  presents  to  the  Abenakis  to  raid  the 
New  England  borders.  Quebec  offers  a  reward  of  twenty  crowns 
for  the  scalp  of  every  white  man  brought  from  the  English 
settlements.  New  England  retaliates  by  offering  £,20  for  every 
Indian  prisoner  under  ten  years  of  age,  ^40  for  every  scalp  of 
full-grown  Indian.  Pres- 
ently the  young  noblesse 
of  New  France  are  off  to 
the  woods,  painted  like 
Indians,  leading  crews 
of  wild  bush  rovers  on 
ambuscade  and  mid- 
night raid  and  border 
foray. 

"We  must  keep 
things  stirring  towards 
Boston,"  declared  Vau- 
dreuil,  the  French  gov- 
ernor. Midwinter  of 
1 704  Hertel  de  Rouville 
and  his  four  brothers  set 
out  on  snowshoes  with 
fifty-one  bushrovers  and 
two  hundred  Indians  for  Massachusetts.  Dressed  in  buckskin, 
with  musket  over  shoulder  and  dagger  in  belt,  the  finest  rangers 
course  up  the  frozen  river  beds  southward  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
and  on  over  the  height  of  land  towards  the  1  ludson,  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  through  pine  woods  snow  padded  and  silent  as 
death.  Two  miles  from  Deerfield  the  marchers  run  short  of  food. 
It  is  the  last  day  of  February,  and  the  sun  goes  down  over  roll- 
ing snowdrifts  high  as  the  slab  stockades  of  the  little  frontier 
town  whose  hearth-fire  smoke  hangs  low  in  the  frost)-  air,  curling 
and  clouding  and  lighting  to  rainbow  colors  as  the  ambushed 


HERTEL  DE    ROUVILLE 


194  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

raiders  watch  from  their  forest  lairs.  Snowshoes  are  laid  aside, 
packs  unstrapped,  muskets  uncased  and  primed,  belts  reefed 
tighter.  Twilight  giv^s  place  to  starlight.  Candles  on  the  sup- 
per tables  of  the  settlement  send  long  gleams  across  the  snow. 
Then  the  villagers  hold  their  family  prayers,  all  unconscious  that 
out  there  in  the  woods  are  the  bushrovers  on  bended  knees,  utter- 
ing prayers  of  another  sort.  Lights  are  put  out.  The  village  lies 
wrapped  in  sleep.  Still  Rouville's  raiders  lie  waiting,  shivering 
in  the  snow,  till  starlight  fades  to  the  gray  darkness  that  pre- 
cedes dawn.  Then  the  bushrovers  rise,  and  at  moccasin  pace, 
noiseless  as  tigers,  skim  across  the  snow,  over  the  drifts,  over  the 
tops  of  the  palisades,  and  have  dropped  into  the  town  before  a 
soul  has  awakened.  There  is  no  need  to  tell  the  rest.  It  was  not 
war.  It  was  butchery.  Children  were  torn  from  their  mother's 
breast  to  be  brained  on  the  hearthstone.  Women  were  hacked 
to  pieces.  Houses  were  set  on  fire,  and  before  the  sun  had 
risen  thirty-eight  persons  had  been  slaughtered,  and  the  French 
rovers  were  back  on  the  forest  trail,  homeward  bound  with 
one  hundred  and  six  prisoners.  Old  and  young,  women  of  frail 
health  and  children  barely  able  to  toddle,  were  hurried  along 
the  trail  at  bayonet  point.  Those  whose  strength  was  unequal 
to  the  pace  were  summarily  knocked  on  the  head  as  they  fagged, 
or  failed  to  ford  the  ice  streams.  Twenty-four  perished  by  the 
way.  Of  the  one  hunded  and  six  prisoners  scattered  as  captives 
among  the  Indians,  not  half  were  ever  heard  of  again.  The 
others  were  either  bought  from  the  Indians  by  Quebec  people, 
whose  pity  was  touched,  or  placed  round  in  the  convents  to 
be  converted  to  the  Catholic  faith.  These  were  ultimately 
redeemed  by  the  government  of  Massachusetts. 

New  England's  fury  over  such  a  raid  in  time  of  peace  knew 
no  bounds.  Yet  how  were  the  English  to  retaliate  ?  To  pursue 
an  ambushed  Indian  along  a  forest  trail  was  to  follow  a  vanish- 
ing phantom. 

From  earliest  times  Boston  had  kept  up  trade  with  Port 
Royal,  and  of  late  years  Port  Royal  had  been  infested  with 
French    pirates,    who    raided    Boston    shipping.    Colonel    Ben 


MADAME  FRENEUSE,  THE  PAINTED   LADY  195 

Church  of  Long  Island,  a  noted  bushfighter,  of  gunpowder 
temper  and  form  so  stout  that  his  men  had  always  to  hoist  him 
over  logs  in  their  forest  marches,  went  storming  from  New 
York  to  Boston  with  a  plan  to  be  revenged  by  raiding  Acadia. 

Rouville's  bushrovers  had  burned  Deerfield  the  first  of  March. 
By  May,  Church  had  sailed  from  Boston  with  six  hundred  men 
on  two  frigates  and  half  a  hundred  whaleboats,  on  vengeance 
bent.  First  he  stopped  at  Baron  St.  Castin's  fort  in  Maine. 
St.  Castin  it  was  who  led  the  Indians  against  the  English  of 
Maine.  The  baron  was  absent,  but  his  daughter  was  captured, 
with  all  the  servants,  and  the  fort  was  burned  to  the  ground. 
Then  up  Fundy  Bay  sailed  Church,  pausing  at  Passamaquoddy 
to  knock  four  Frenchmen  on  the  head  ;  pausing  at  Port  Royal 
to  take  eight  men  prisoners,  kill  cattle,  ravage  fields  ;  pausing 
at  Basin  of  Mines  to  capture  forty  habitants,  burn  the  church, 
and  cut  the  dikes,  letting  the  sea  in  on  the  crops  ;  pausing  at 
Beaubassin,  the  head  of  Fundy  Bay,  in  August,  to  set  the  yellow 
wheat  fields  in  flames  !  Then  he  sailed  back  to  Boston  with 
French  prisoners  enough  to  insure  an  exchange  for  the  English 
held  at  Quebec. 

No  sooner  had  English  sails  disappeared  over  the  sea  than 
the  French  came  out  of  the  woods.  St.  Castin  rebuilt  his  fort 
in  Maine.  The  local  Governor,  who  had  held  on  with  his  gates 
shut  and  cannon  pointed  while  Church  ravaged  Port  Royal 
village,  now  strengthened  his  walls.  Acadia  took  a  breath  and 
went  on  as  before,  —  a  little  world  in  itself,  with  the  pirate  ships 
slipping  in  and  out,  loaded  to  the  water  line  with  Boston  booty ; 
with  the  buccaneer  Basset  throwing  his  gold  round  like  dust ; 
with  the  brave  soldier  Bonaventure  losing  his  head  and  losing 
his  heart  to  the  painted  lady,  Widow  Freneuse,  who  came 
from  nobody  knew  where  and  lived  nobody  knew  how,  and  plied 
her  mischief  of  winning  the  hearts  of  other  women's  husbands. 
"She  must  be  sent  away,"  thundered  the  priest  from  the  pulpit. 
straight  at  the  garrison  officer  whoso  heart  she  dangled  as  her 
trophy.  "  She  must  be  sent  away,"  thundered  the  King's  man- 
date ;    but    the    King  was    in    France,    and    Madame    Freneuse 


196  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

wound  her  charms  the  tighter  round  the  hearts  of  the  garrison 
officers,  and  bided  her  time,  to  the  scandal  of  the  parish  and 
impotent  rage  of  the  priest.  Was  she  vixen  or  fool,  this  fair 
snake  woman  with  the  beautiful  face,  for  whose  smile  the  officers 
risked  death  and  disgrace  ?  Was  she  spy  or  adventuress  ?  She 
signed  herself  as  "  Widow  Freneuse,"  and  had  applied  to  the 
King  for  a  pension  as  having  grown  sons  fighting  in  the  Indian 
wars.  She  will  come  into  this  story  again,  snakelike  and  soft- 
spoken,  and  appealing  for  pity,  and  fair  to  look  upon,  but  leav- 
ing a  trail  of  blood  and  treachery  and  disgrace  where  she  goes. 

The  fur  trade  of  Port  Royal  at  this  time  was  controlled  by  a 
family  ring  of  La  Tours  and  Charnisays,  descendants  of  the 
ancient  foes  ;  and  they  lived  a  life  of  reckless  gayety,  spiced 
with  all  the  excitement  of  war  and  privateering  and  matrimo- 
nial intrigue.  Such  was  life  inside  Port  Royal.  Outside  was 
the  quiet  peace  of  a  home-loving,  home-staying  peasantry.  Few 
of  the  farmers  could  read  or  write.  The  houses  were  little 
square  Norman  cottages,  —  "wooden  boxes"  the  commandant 
called  them, — with  the  inevitable  porch  shaded  by  the  fruit 
trees  now  grown  into  splendid  orchards.  By  diking  out  the 
sea  the  peasants  farmed  the  marsh  lands  and  saved  themselves 
the  trouble  of  clearing  the  forests.  Trade  was  carried  on  with 
Boston  and  the  West  Indies.  No  card  money  here!  The  farmers 
of  Acadia  demanded  coin  in  gold  from  the  privateers  who  called 
for  cargo,  and  it  is  said  that  in  time  of  such  raids  as  Colonel 
Church's,  great  quantities  of  this  gold  were  carried  out  by 
night  and  buried  in  huge  pots,  —  as  much  as  5000  louis  d'ors 
(pounds)  in  one  pot, — -to  be  dug  up  after  the  raiders  had  de- 
parted. Naturally,  as  raids  grew  frequent,  men  sometimes  made 
the  mistake  of  digging  up  other  men's  pots,  and  one  officer  lost 
his  reputation  over  it.  All  his  knowledge  of  the  outside  world, 
of  politics,  of  religion,  the  Acadian  farmer  obtained  from  his 
parish  priest ;   and  the  word  of  the  cure  was  law. 

Encouraged  by  Church's  success  and  stung  by  the  raids  of 
French  corsairs  from  Port  Royal,  New  England  set  herself  seri- 
ously to  the  task  of  conquering  Acadia.    Colonel  March  sailed 


"OLD  WOODEN  SWORD"  197 

from  Boston  with  one  thousand  men  and  twenty-three  trans- 
ports, and  on  June  6,  1707,  came  into  Port  Royal.  Misfortunes 
began  from  the  first.  March's  men  were  the  rawest  of  recruits, — 
fishermen,  farmers,  carpenters,  turned  into  soldiers.  Unused  to 
military  discipline,  they  resisted  command.  A  French  guard- 
house stood  at  the  entrance  to  Port  Royal  Basin,  and  fifteen 
men  at  once  fled  to  the  fort  with  warning  of  the  English  inva- 
sion. Consequently,  when  Colonel  March  and  Colonel  Appleton 
attempted  to  land  their  men,  they  were  serenaded  by  the  shots 
of  an  ambushed  foe.  Also  French  soldiers  deserted  to  the  Eng- 
lish camp  with  fabulous  stories  about  the  strength  of  the  French 
under  Subercase.  These  yarns  ought  to  have  discredited  them- 
selves, but  they  struck  terror  to  the  hearts  of  March's  green 
fighters.  Then  came  St.  Castin  from  St.  John  River  with  bush- 
rovers  to  help  Subercase.  To  the  amazement  of  the  French  the 
English  hoisted  sail  and  returned,  on  June  16,  without  having 
fired  more  than  a  round  of  shot.  The  truth  is,  March's  carpen- 
ters and  fishermen  refused  to  fight,  though  reinforcements  joined 
them  halfway  home  and  they  made  a  second  attempt  on  Port 
Royal  in  August.  March  returned  to  Boston  heartbroken,  for 
his  name  had  become  a  byword  to  the  mob,  and  he  was  greeted 
in  the  streets  with  shouts  of  "  Old  Wooden  Sword  !  " 

While  Boston  was  attempting  to  wreak  vengeance  on  Acadia 
for  the  raiders  of  Quebec,  the  bushrovers  from  the  St.  Lawrence 
continued  to  scourge  the  outlying  settlements  of  New  England. 
To  post  soldiers  on  the  frontier  was  useless.  Wherever  there 
were  guards  the  raiders  simply  passed  on  to  some  unprotected 
village,  and  to  have  kept  soldiers  along  the  line  of  the  whole 
frontier  would  have  required  a  standing  army.  Massachusetts, 
Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  northern  New  York,  —  on  the 
frontier  of  each  reigned  perpetual  terror.  And  the  fiendish  work 
was  a  paying  business  to  the  pagan  Indian  ;  for  the  Christian 
white  men  paid  well  for  all  scalps,  and  ransom  money  could 
always  be  extorted  for  captives.  Barely  had  the  Boston  raid 
on  Port  Royal  failed,  when  Governor  de  Vaudreuil   of  Quebec 


198  CANADA:     THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE    NORTH 

retaliated  by  turning  his  raiders  loose  on  Haverhill.  The  Eng 
lish  fleet  failed  at  Port  Royal  in  June.  By  dawn  of  Sunday, 
August  29,  Hertel  de  Rouville  had  swooped  on  the  English  vil- 
lage of  Haverhill  with  one  hundred  Canadian  bushrovers  and 
one  hundred  and  fifty  Indians.  The  story  of  one  raid  is  the 
story  of  all ;  so  this  one  need  not  be  told.  As  the  raiders  were 
discovered  at  daylight,  the  people  had  a  chance  to  defend  them- 
selves, and  some  of  the  villagers  escaped,  the  family  of  one 
being  hidden  by  a  negro  nurse  under  tubs  in  the  cellar.  Alarm 
had  been  carried  to  the  surrounding  settlements,  and  men  rode 
hot  haste  in  pursuit  of  the  forty  prisoners.  Hertel  de  Rouville 
coolly  sent  back  word,  if  the  pursuers  did  not  desist,  all  the  pris- 
oners would  be  scalped  and  left  on  the  roadside.  Some  fifty 
English  had  fallen  in  the  fight,  but  the  French  lost  fifteen, 
among  them  young  Jared  of  Vercheres,  brother  of  the  heroine. 
The  only  peace  for  Massachusetts  was  the  peace  that  would 
be  a  victory,  and  again  New  England  girded  herself  to  the  task 
of  capturing  Acadia.  It  was  open  war  now,  for  the  crowns  of 
England  and  France  were  at  odds.  The  troops  were  commanded 
by  General  Francis  Nicholson,  an  English  officer  who  brought 
out  four  war  ships  and  four  hundred  trained  marines.  There 
were,  besides,  thirty-six  transports  and  three  thousand  provin- 
cial troops,  clothed  and  outfitted  by  Queen  Anne  of  England. 
Sunday,  September  24,  17 10,  the  fleet  glides  majestically  into 
Port  Royal  Basin.  That  night  the  wind  blew  a  hurricane  and 
the  transport  Ccesar  went  aground  with  a  crash  that  smashed 
her  timbers  to  kindling  wood  and  sent  twenty-four  men  to  a 
watery  grave  ;  but  General  Nicholson  gave  the  raw  provincials 
no  time  for  panic  fright.  Day  dawn,  Monday,  drums  rolling  a 
martial  tread,  trumpets  blowing,  bugles  setting  the  echoes  fly- 
ing, flags  blowing  to  the  wind  in  the  morning  sun,  he  commanded 
Colonel  Vetch  to  lead  the  men  ashore.  Inside  Port  Royal's  pal- 
isades Subercase,  the  French  commander,  had  less  than  three 
hundred  men,  half  that  number  absolutely  naked  of  clothing, 
and  all  short  of  powder.  There  were  not  provisions  to  last  a 
month  ;   but,  game  to  his  soul's  marrow,  as  all  the  warriors  of 


SUBERCASK  AT  PORT   ROYAL 


199 


those  early  days,  Subercase  put  up  a  brave  fight,  sending  his 
bombs  singing  over  the  heads  of  the  English  troops  in  a  vain 
attempt  to  baffle  the  landing.  Nicholson  retaliated  by  moving 
his  bomb  ship,  light  of  draught,  close  to  the  French  fort  and 
pouring  a  shower  of  bombs  through  the  roofs  of  the  French 
fort.  Spite  of  the  wreck  the  night  before,  by  four  o'clock  Mon- 
day afternoon  all  the  English  had  landed  in  perfect  order  and 
high  spirits.  Slowly  the  English  forces  swung  in  a  circle  com- 
pletely round  the  fort.    Again  and  again,  by  daylight  and  dark, 


CONTEMPORARY  PLAN   OF   PORT   ROYAL   BASIN 

Subercase's  naked  soldiers  rushed,  screeching  the  war  whoop,  to 
ambush  and  stampede  the  English  line  ;  but  Nicholson's  regu- 
lars stood  the  fire  like  rocks,  and  the  desperate  sortie  of  the 
French  ended  in  fifty  of  Subercase's  soldiers  deserting  en  masse 
to  the  English.  By  Friday  Nicholson's  guns  were  all  mounted 
in  place  to  bombard  the  little  wooden  fort.  Subercase  was  des- 
perate. Women  and  children  from  the  settlement  had  crowded 
into  the  fort  for  protection,  and  were  now  crazed  with  fear  by 
the  bursting  bombs,  while  the  naked  soldiers  could  be  kept  on 
the  walls  only  at  the  sword  point  <A   their  commanding  officers. 


200  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

For  two  hundred  French  to  have  held  out  longer  against  three 
thousand  five  hundred  English  would  have  been  madness.  Suber- 
case  made  the  presence  of  the  women  in  Port  Royal  an  excuse 
to  send  a  messenger  with  flag  of  truce  across  to  Nicholson,  asking 
the  English  to  take  the  women  under  their  protection.  Nicholson 
might  well  have  asked  what  protection  the  French  raiders  had 
accorded  the  women  of  the  New  England  frontiers  ;  but  he  sent 
back  polite  answer  that  "as  he  was  not  warring  on  women  and 
children"  he  would  receive  them  in  the  English  camp,  meanwhile 
holding  Subercase's  messenger  prisoner,  as  he  had  entered  the 
English  camp  without  warning,  eyes  unbound.  Sunday,  Octo- 
ber i,  the  English  bombs  again  began  singing  overhead.  Suber- 
case  sends  word  he  will  capitulate  if  given  honorable  terms. 
For  a  month  the  parleying  continues.  Then  November  13  the 
terms  are  signed  on  both  sides,  the  English  promising  to  fur- 
nish ships  to  carry  the  garrison  to  some  French  port  and  pledg- 
ing protection  to  the  people  of  the  settlement.  November  14  the 
French  officers  and  their  ladies  come  across  to  the  English  camp 
and  breakfast  in  pomp  with  the  English  commanders.  Seven- 
teen New  England  captives  are  hailed  forth  from  Port  Royal 
dungeons,  "  all  in  rags,  without  shirts,  shoes,  or  stockings."  On 
the  1 6th  Nicholson  draws  his  men  up  in  two  lilies,  one  on  each 
side  of  Port  Royal  gates,  and  the  two  hundred  French  soldiers 
marched  out,  saluting  Nicholson  as  they  passed  to  the  transports. 
On  the  bridge,  halfway  out,  French  officers  meet  the  English 
officers,  doff  helmets,  and  present  the  keys  to  the  fort.  For  the 
last  time  Port  Royal  changes  hands.  Henceforth  it  is  English, 
and  in  gratitude  for  the  Queen's  help  Nicholson  renamed  the 
place  as  it  is  known  to-day,  ■ —  Annapolis.  Among  the  raiders 
capitulating  is  the  famous  bushrover  Baron  St.  Castin  of  Maine. 

When  Nicholson  returned  to  Boston  all  New  England  went 
mad  with  delight.  Thanksgiving  services  were  held,  joy  bells 
rang  day  and  night  for  a  week,  and  bonfires  blazed  on  village 
commons  to  the  gleeful  shoutings  of  rustic  soldiers  returned  to 
the  home  settlements  glorified  heroes. 


PAUL  MASCARENE'S  PLIGHT 


201 


At  Annapolis  (Port  Royal)  Paul  Mascarene,  a  French  Hugue- 
not of  Boston,  has  mounted  guard  with  two  hundred  and  fifty 
New  England  volunteers.  Colonel  Vetch  is  nominally  the  Eng- 
lish governor  ;  but  Vetch  is  in  Boston  the  most  of  the  time,  and 
it  is  on  Mascarene  the  burden  of  governing  falls.  His  duties 
are  not  light.  Palisades  have  been  broken  down  and  must  be 
repaired.  Bombs  have  torn  holes  in  the  fort  roofs,  and  all  that 
winter  the  rain  leaks  in 
as  through  a  sieve.  The 
soldier  volunteers  grum- 
ble and  mope  and  sicken. 
And  these  are  not  the 
least  of  Paul  Mascarene's 
troubles.  French  priests 
minister  to  the  Acadian 
farmers  outside  the  fort, 
to  the  sinister  Indians 
ever  lying  in  ambush,  to 
the  French  bushrovers 
under  young  St.  Castin 
across  Fundy  Bay  on 
St.  John  River.  Not  for 
love  or  money  can  Mas- 
carene buy  provisions 
from  the  Acadians.  Not 
by  threats  can  he  com- 
pel them  to  help  mend 
the  breaches  in  the  pali- 
sades. The  young  commandant  was  only  twenty-seven  years  <>f 
age,  but  he  must  have  guessed  whence  came  the  unspoken 
hostility.  The  first  miserable  winter  wears  slowly  past  and  the 
winter  of  171 1  is  setting  in,  with  the  English  garrison  even  more 
poverty  stricken  than  the  year  before,  when  there  drifts  into 
Annapolis  Basin,  in  a  birch  canoe  paddled  by  a  New  Bruns- 
wick Indian,  a  white  woman  with  her  little  sun.  She  has  come, 
she  says,  from  the  north  side  of  Fundy  Bay,  because  the  French 


PAUL    MASCARENE 


202  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

on  St.  John  River  are  starving.  Whether  the  story  be  true  or 
false  matters  little.  It  was  the  Widow  Freneuse,  the  snake 
woman  of  mischief-making  witchery,  who  had  woven  her  spells 
round  the  officers  in  the  days  of  the  French  at  Port  Royal. 
True  or  false,  her  story,  added  to  her  smile,  excited  sympathy, 
and  she  was  welcomed  to  the  shelter  of  the  fort.  It  had  been 
almost  impossible  for  the  English  to  obtain  trees  to  repair  the 
walls  of  the  fort,  and  seventy  English  soldiers  were  sent  out 
secretly  by  night  to  paddle  up  the  river  in  a  whaleboat  for 
timber.  Wrho  conveyed  secret  warning  of  this  expedition  to  the 
French  bushraiders  outside  ?  No  doubt  the  fair  spy,  Widow 
Freneuse,  could  have  told  if  she  would  ;  but  five  miles  from  Port 
Royal,  where  the  river  narrowed  to  a  place  ever  since  known  as 
Bloody  Brook,  a  crash  of  musket  shots  flared  from  the  woods  on 
each  side.  Painted  Indians,  and  Frenchmen  dressed  as  Indians, 
among  whom  was  a  son  of  Widow  Freneuse,  dashed  out.  Six- 
teen English  were  killed,  nine  wounded,  the  rest  to  a  man  cap- 
tured, to  be  held  for  ransoms  ranging  from  ^10  to  ,£50.  Oddly 
enough,  the  very  night  after  the  attack,  before  news  of  it  had 
come  to  Annapolis,  the  Widow  Freneuse  disappears  from  the 
fort.  Henceforth  Paul  Mascarene's  men  kept  guard  night  and 
day,  and  slept  in  their  boots.  Ever  like  a  sinister  shadow  of  evil 
moved  St.  Castin  and  his  raiders  through  the  Acadian  wild  woods. 
Only  one  thing  prevented  the  French  recapturing  Port  Royal 
at  this  time.  All  troops  were  required  to  defend  Quebec  itself 
from  invasion. 

Nicholson's  success  at  Port  Royal  spurred  England  and  her 
American  colonies  to  a  more  ambitious  project,  —  to  capture 
Quebec  and  subjugate  Canada.  This  time  Nicholson  was  to 
head  twenty-five  hundred  provincial  troops  by  way  of  Fake 
Champlain  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  while  a  British  army  of  twelve 
thousand,  half  soldiers,  half  marines,  on  'fifteen  frigates  and  forty- 
six  transports,  was  to  sail  from  Boston  for  Quebec.  The  navy 
was  under  command  of  Sir  Hovender  Walker  ;  the  army,  of  Gen- 
eral Jack  Hill,  a  court  favorite  of  Queen  Anne's,  more  noted  for 


COURT  DANDIES  CAUSE  NAVAL  DISASTER  203 

his  graces  than  his  prowess.  The  whole  expedition  is  one  of  the 
most  disgraceful  in  the  annals  of  English  war.  The  fleet  left 
Boston  on  July  30,  171 1,  Nicholson  meanwhile  waiting  encamped 
on  Lake  Champlain.  Early  in  August  the  immense  fleet  had 
rounded  Sable  Island  and  was  off  the  shores  of  Anticosti. 
Though  there  was  no  good  pilot  on  board,  the  two  commanders 
nightly  went  to  bed  and  slept  the  sleep  of  the  just.  Off  Egg 
Islands,  on  the  night  of  August  22,  there  was  fog  and  a  strong 
east  wind.  Walker  evidently  thought  he  was  near  the  south 
shore,  ignorant  of  the  strong  undertow  of  the  tide  here,  which 
had  carried  his  ships  thirty  miles  off  the  course.  The  water  was 
rolling  in  the  lumpy  masses  of  a  choppy  cross  sea  when  a  young 
captain  of  the  regulars  dashed  breathlessly  into  Walker's  state- 
room and  begged  him  "  for  the  Lord's  sake  to  come  on  deck, 
for  there  are  reefs  ahead  and  we  shall  all  be  lost !  " 

With  a  seaman's  laugh  at  a  landsman's  fears,  the  Admiral 
donned  dressing  gown  and  slippers  and  shuffled  up  to  the  decks. 
A  pale  moon  had  broken  through  the  ragged  fog  wrack,  and 
through  the  white  light  they  plainly  saw  mountainous  breakers 
straight  ahead.  Walker  shouted  to  let  the  anchor  go  and  drive 
to  the  wind.  Above  the  roar  of  breakers  and  trample  of  panic- 
stricken  seamen  over  decks  could  be  heard  the  minute  guns  of 
the  other  ships  firing  for  help.  Then  pitch  darkness  fell  with 
slant  rains  in  a  deluge.  The  storm  abated,  but  all  night  long, 
above  the  boom  of  an  angry  sea,  could  be  heard  shrieks  and 
shoutings  for  help;  and  by  the  light  of  the  Admiral's  ship  could 
be  seen  the  faces  of  the  dead  cast  up  by  the  moil  of  the  sea. 
Before  dawn  eight  transports  had  suffered  shipwreck  and  one 
thousand  lives  were  lost. 

It  was  a  night  to  put  fear  in  the  hearts  of  all  but  very  brave 
men,  and  neither  Walker  nor  Hill  proved  man  enough  to  stand 
firm  to  the  shock.  Walker  ascribed  the  loss  to  the  storm  and 
the  storm  to  Providence  ;  and  when  war  council  was  held  three 
days  later  Jack  Hill,  the  court  dandy,  was  only  too  glad  of  excuse 
to  turn  tail  and  flee  to  England  without  firing  a  gun.  Poor  old 
Nicholson,  waiting  with  his  provincials  up  on  Lake  Champlain, 


204  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

goes  into  apoplexy  with  tempests  of  rage  and  chagrin,  when  he 
hears  the  news,  stamping  the  ground,  tearing  off  his  wig,  and  shout- 
ing, "  Rogues !  rogues !  "    He  burns  his  fort  and  disbands  his  men. 

The  Peace  of  Utrecht  in  1713"  for  the  time  closed  the  war. 
France  had  been  hopelessly  defeated  in  Europe,  and  the  terms 
were  favorable  to  England. 

All  of  Hudson  Bay  was  to  be  restored  to  the  English  ;  but 
—  note  well  —  it  was  not  specified  where  the  boundaries  were 
to  be  between  Hudson  Bay  and  Quebec.  That  boundary  dispute 
came  down  as  a  heritage  to  modern  days  —  thanks  to  the  incom- 
petency and  ignorance  of  the  statesmen  who  arranged  the  treaty. 

Acadia  was  given  to  England,  but  Cape  Breton  was  retained 
by  the  French,  and  —  note  well  —  it  was  not  stated  whether 
Acadia  included  New  Brunswick  and  Maine,  as  the  French 
formerly  contended,  or  included  only  the  peninsula  south  of  the 
Bay  of  Fundy.    That  boundary  dispute,  too,,  came  clown. 

Newfoundland  was  acknowledged  as  an  English  possession, 
but  the  French  retained  the  islands  of  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon, 
with  fishing  privileges  on  the  shores  of  Newfoundland.  That 
concession,  too,  has  come  down  to  trouble  modern  days,  —  thanks 
to  the  same  defenders  of  colonial  interests. 

The  Iroquois  were  acknowledged  to  be  subjects  of  England, 
but  it  was  not  stated  whether  that  concession  included  the  lands 
of  the  Ohio  raided  and  subjugated  by  the  Iroquois  ;  and  that 
vagueness  was  destined  to  cost  both  New  France  and  New 
England  some  of  its  best  blood. 

It  has  been  stated,  and  stated  many  times  without  dispute,  that 
when  England  sacrificed  the  interests  of  her  colonies  in  boundary 
settlements,  she  did  so  because  she  was  in  honor  bound  to  observe 
the  terms  of  treaties.  One  is  constrained  to  ask  whose  ignorance 
was  responsible  for  the  terms  of  those  treaties. 

Looking  back  on  the  record  so  far,  —  both  of  F ranee  and 
England, — which  has  spent  the  more  both  of  substance  and  of 
life  for  defense  ;   the  mother  countries  or  the  colonies  ? 


CHAPTER  XI 
FROM  1713  TO  1755 

What  with  clandestine  raids  and  open  wars,  it  might  be  thought 
that  the  little  nation  of  New  France  had  vent  enough  for  the 
buoyant  energy  of  its  youth.  While  the  population  of  the  Eng- 
lish colonies  was  nearing  the  million  mark,  New  France  had  not 
60,000  inhabitants  by  1759.  Yet  what  had  the  little  nation,  whose 
mainspring  was  at  Quebec,  accomplished  ?  Look  at  the  map  ! 
Her  bushrovers  had  gone  overland  to  Hudson  Bay  far  north  as 
Nelson.  Before  1700  Duluth  had  forts  at  Kaministiquia  (near 
modern  Fort  Williams)  on  Lake  Superior.  Radisson,  Marquette, 
Jolliet,  and  La  Salle  had  blazed  a  trail  to  the  Mississippi  from 
what  is  now  Minnesota  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  By  1701  La  Motte 
Cadillac  had  built  what  is  now  Detroit  in  order  to  stop  the  prog- 
ress of  the  English  traders  up  the  lakes  to  Michilimackinac  ; 
and  by  1727  the  Company  of  the  Sioux  had  forts  far  west  as 
Lake  Pepin.  With  Quebec  as  the  hub  of  the  wheel,  draw  spokes 
across  the  map  of  North  America.  Where  do  they  reach  ?  From 
Quebec  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  to  the  Missouri,  to  the  Upper 
Mississippi,  to  Lake  Superior,  to  Hudson  Bay.  Who  blazed  the 
way  through  these  far  pathless  wilds  ?  Nameless  wanderers 
dressed  in  rags  and  tatters,  —  outcasts  of  society,  forest  rovers 
lured  by  the  Unknown  as  by  a  siren,  soldiers  of  fortune,  penni- 
less, in  debt,  heartbroken,  slandered,  persecuted,  driven  by  the 
demon  of  their  own  genius  to  earth's  ends,  — and  to  ruin  ! 

Spite  of  clandestine  raids  and  open  wars,  New  France  was 
now  setting  herself  to  stretch  the  lines  of  her  discoveries  farther 
westward. 

It  will  be  remembered  it  was  at  Three  Rivers  that  the  Indians 
of  the  Up  Country  paused  on  their  way  down  the  St.  Lawrence. 


206  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

From  the  days  of  Radisson  in  1660  the  passion  for  discovery 
had  been  in  the  very  air  of  Three  Rivers.  In  this  little  fort  was 
born  in  4686  Pierre  Gaultier  Varennes  de  La  Verendrye,  son  of 
a  French  officer.  From  childhood  the  boy's  ear  must  have  been 
accustomed  to  the  uncouth  babblings  of  the  half-naked  Indians, 
whose  canoes  came  swarming  down  the  river  soon  as  ice  broke 
up  in  spring.  One  can  guess  that  in  his  play  the  boy  many  a 
time  simulated  Indian  voyageur,  bushrover,  coming  home  clad 
in  furs,  the  envy  of  the  villagers.  At  fourteen  young  Pierre  had 
decided  that  he  would  be  a  great  explorer,  but  destiny  for  the 
time  ruled  otherwise.  At  eighteen  he  was  among  the  bushraiders 
of  New  England.  Nineteen  found  him  fighting  the  English  in 
Newfoundland.  Then  came  the  honor  coveted  by  all  Canadian 
boys, — an  appointment  to  the  King's  army  in  Europe.  Young 
La  Verendrye  was  among  the  French  forces  defeated  by  the 
great  Marlborough  ;  but  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  sent  him  back  to 
Canada,  aged  twenty-seven,  to  serve  in  the  far  northern  fur  post 
of  Nepigon,  eating  his  heart  out  with  ambition. 

It  was  here  the  dreams  of  his  childhood  emerged  like  a  com- 
manding destiny.  Old  Indian  chief  Ochagach  drew  maps  on 
birch  bark  of  a  trail  to  the  Western  Sea.  La  Verendrye  took 
canoe  for  Quebec,  and,  with  heart  beating  to  the  passion  of  a 
secret  ambition,  laid  the  drawings  before  Governor  Beauharnois. 
He  came  just  in  the  nick  of  time.  English  traders  were  pressing 
westward.  New  PYance  lent  ready  ear  for  schemes  of  wider 
empire.  The  court  could  grant  no  money  for  discoveries,  but  it 
gave  La  Verendrye  permission  for  a  voyage  and  monopoly  in 
furs  over  the  lands  he  might  discover  ;  but  the  lands  must  be 
found  before  there  would  be  furs,  and  here  began  the  mundane 
worries  of  La  Verendrye' s  glory. 

Montreal  merchants  outfitted  him,  but  that  meant  debt ;  and 
his  little  party  of  fifty  grizzled  woodrovers  set  out  with  their 
ninety-foot  birch  canoes  from  Montreal  on  June  8,  1 73  1 .  Three 
sons  were  in  his  party  and  a  nephew,  Jemmeraie,  from  the  Sioux 
country  of  the  west.  Every  foot  westward  had  been  consecrated 
by  heroism  to  set  the  pulse  of  red-blooded  men  jumping.    There 


I. A  YERENDRYE'S  ADVENTURING  TO  THE  WEST      207 

was  the  seigniory  of  La  Chine,  named  in  derision  of  La  Salle's 
project  to  find  a  path  to  China.  There  was  the  Long  Sault,  where 
Dollard  had  fought  the  Iroquois.  There  were  the  pink  granite 
islands  of  Georgian  Bay,  where  the  Jesuits  had  led  their  harried 
Hurons.  There  was  Michilimackinac,  with  the  brawl  of  its  vice 
and  brandy  and  lawless  traders  from  the  woods,  where  La  Motte 
Cadillac  ruled  before  going  to  found  Detroit.  Seventy-eight  days 
from  Montreal,  there  were  the  pictured  rocks  of  Lake  Superior, 
purple  and  silent  and  deep  as  ocean,  which  Radisson  had  coasted 


Klllisti.\s  . 


1..A  verendrye's  forts  and  the  river  of  the  west 

(After  Jeffery's  map,  1762) 

on   his   way  to  the   Mississippi.    Then    La  Verendrye  came  to 
Duluth's  old  stamping  ground  —  Kaministiquia. 


The  home-bound  boats  were  just  leaving  the  fur  posts  for  the 
St.  Lawrence.  Frosts  had  already  stripped  the  trees  of  foliage, 
and  winter  would  presently  lock  all  avenues  of  retreat  in  six 
months'  ice.  La  Verendrye's  men  began  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of 
chasing  a  will-o'-the-wisp  to  an  unknown  Western  Sea.  The  ex- 
plorer sent  half  the  party  forward  with  his  nephew  Jemmeraie 
and  his  son  Jean,  while  he  himself  remained  at  Kaministiquia 
with  the  mutineers  to  forage  for  provisions. 


2o8  CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Winter  found  Jemmeraie's  men  on  the  Minnesota  side  of  Rainy 
Lake,  where  they  built  Fort  Pierre  and  drove  a  rich  trade  in  furs 
with  the  encamped  Crees.  In  summer  of  1732  came  La  Veren- 
drye,  his  men  in  gayest  apparel  marching  before  the  awe-struck 
Crees  with  bugle  blowing  and  flags  flying.  Then  white  men  and 
Crees  advanced  in  canoes  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  coasting 
from  island  to  island  through  the  shadowy  defiles  of  the  sylvan 
rocks  along  the  Minnesota  shore  to  the  northwest  angle.  Here 
a  second  winter  witnessed  the  building  of  a  second  post,  Fort  St. 
Charles,  with  four  rows  of  fifteen-foot  palisades  and  thatched- 
roofed  log  cabins.  The  Western  Sea  seemed  far  as  ever, — like 
the  rainbow  of  the  child,  ever  fleeing  as  pursued,  —  and  La 
Verendrye's  merchant  partners  were  beginning  to  curse  him  for 
a  rainbow  chaser.  He  had  been  away  three  years,  and  there  were 
no  profits.  Suspicious  that  he  might  be  defrauding  them  by  pri- 
vate trade  or  sacrificing  their  interests  to  his  own  ambitions,  they 
failed  to  send  forward  provisions  for  this  year.  La  Verendrye 
was  in  debt  to  his  men  for  three  years'  wages,  in  debt  to  his 
partners  for  three  years'  provisions.  To  fail  now  he  dared  not. 
Go  forward  he  could  not,  so  he  hurried  down  to  Montreal,  where 
he  prevailed  on  the  merchants  to  continue  supplies  by  the  simple 
argument  that,  if  they  stopped  now,  there  would  be  total  loss. 
Young  Jean  La  Verendrye  and  Jemmeraie  have  meanwhile 
descended  Winnipeg  River's  white  fret  of  waterfalls  to  Winnipeg 
Lake,  where  they  build  Fort  Maurepas,  near  modern  Alexander, 
—and  wait.  Fishing  failed.  The  hunt  failed.  The  winter  of  1735- 
1736  proved  of  such  terrible  severity  that  famine  stalked  through 
the  western  woods.  La  Verendrye's  three  forts  were  reduced  to 
diet  of  skins,  moccasin  soup,  and  dog  meat.  In  desperation  Jem- 
meraie set  out  with  a  few  voyageurs  to  meet  the  returning  com- 
mander, but  privation  had  undermined  his  strength.  He  died  on 
the  way  and  was  buried  in  his  hunter's  blanket  beside  an  unknown 
stream  between  Lake  Winnipeg  and  the  Lake  of  the  Woods. 
Accompanied  by  the  priest  Aulneau,  young  Jean  de  La  Veren- 
drye decided  to  rush  canoes  down  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods 
to  Michilimackinac  for  food  and  powder.    A  furious  pace  was 


ADVENTURERS  REACH   LAKE   WINNIPEG 


209 


etdzlLicndeMTt, 


1     .M*M    Ol 


m.  Merwin. 

llOr/EST. 


aramiri.  <&   {Of*/rnaJ  ir'tut 
— •    ,/nf  t/'tisi  siityU  trait,  ft  tijlltr 
est  larte-  t?t-  antiexr  deau.  . 


to  be  kept  all  the  way  to  Lake  Superior.  The  voyageurs  had 
risen  early  one  morning  in  June,  and  after  paddling  some  miles 
through  the  mist  had  landed  to  breakfast  when  a  band  of  ma- 
rauding Sioux  fell  on  them  with  a  shout.  The  priest  Aulneau 
fell  pierced  in  the  head  by  a  stone-pointed  arrow.  Young  Jean 
La  Verendrye  was  literally  hacked  to  pieces.  Not  a  man  of 
the  seventeen  French  escaped,  and  Massacre  Island  became  a 
place  of  ill  omen  to  the 
French  from  that  day. 
At  last  came  the  belated 
supplies,  and  by  Febru- 
ary of  1737  La  Veren- 
drye had  moved  his  main 
forces  west  to  Lake 
Winnipeg.  This  was  no 
Western  Sea,  though 
the  wind  whipped  the 
lake  like  a  tide,  —  which 
explained  the  Indian  leg- 
end of  an  inland  ocean. 
Though  it  was  no  West- 
ern Sea,  it  was  a  new 
empire  for  France.  The 
bourne  of  the  Unknown 
still  fled  like  the  rain- 
bow, and  La  Verendrye 
still  pursued. 

Down  to  Quebec  for  more  supplies  with  tales  of  a  vast  Beyond 
Land !  Back  to  Lake  Winnipeg  by  September  of  1 73S  with  cam  >es 
gliding  up  the  muddy  current  of  Red  River  for  the  Unknown 
Land  of  the  Assiniboines  ;  past  Nettley  Creek,  then  known  as 
Massacre  Creek  or  Murderers'  River,  from  the  Sioux  having  slain 
the  encamped  wives  and  children  of  the  Cree  who  had  gone  to 
Hudson  Bay  with  their  furs  ;  between  the  wooded  banks  of  what 
are  now  East  and  West  Selkirk,  flat  to  left,  high  to  right  ;  track- 
ing up  the  Rapids  of   St.  Andrews,  thick   oak   woods   to  cast, 


MAP  PUBLISHED   IX   PARIS  IX    1752  SHOWING 
THE   SUPPOSED   SEA    OF   Till'.   WEST 


210     CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

rippling  prairie  russet  in  the  autumn  rolling  to  the  west,  —  La 
Verendrye  and  his  voyageurs  came  to  the  forks  of  Red  River 
and  the  Assiniboine,  or  what  is  now  known  as  the  city  of  Win- 
nipeg. Where  the  two  rivers  met  on  the  flats  to  the  west  were 
the  high  scaffoldings  of  an  ancient  Cree  graveyard,  bizarre  and 
eerie  and  ghostlike  between  the  voyageurs  and  the  setting  sun. 
On  the  high  river  bank  of  what  is  now  known  as  Assiniboine 
Avenue  gleamed  the  white  skin  of  ten  Cree  tepees,  where  two 
war  chiefs  waited  to  meet  La  Verendrye.  Drawing  up  their 
canoes  near  where  the  bridge  now  spans  between  St.  Boniface 
and  Winnipeg,  the  voyageurs  came  ashore. 

It  was  a  fair  scene  that  greeted  them,  such  a  scene  as  any 
westerner  may  witness  to-day  of  a  warm  September  night  when 
the  sun  hangs  low  like  a  blood-red  shield,  and  the  evening  breeze 
touches  the  rustling  grasses  of  the  prairie  beyond  the  city  to  the 
waves  of  an  ocean.  It  was  not  the  Western  Sea,  but  it  was  a  Sea 
of  Prairie.  It  was  a  New  World,  unbounded  by  hill  or  forest, 
spacious  as  the  very  airs  of  heaven,  fenced  only  by  the  blue  dip 
of  a  shimmering  horizon.  It  was  a  world,  though  La  Verendrye 
knew  it  not,  five  times  larger  than  New  F ranee,  half  as  big  as 
all  Europe.    He  had  discovered  the  Canadian  Northwest. 

One  can  guess  how  the  tired  wanderers  at  rest  beneath  the 
uptilted  canoes  that  night  wondered  whither  their  quest  would 
lead  them  over  the  fire-dyed  horizon  where  the  sun  was  sinking 
as  over  a  sea.  The  Cree  chiefs  told  them  of  other  lands  and 
other  peoples  to  the  south,  "who  trade  with  a  people  who  dwelt 
on  the  great  waters  beyond  the  mountains  of  the  setting  sun," 
—  the  Spaniards. 

Leaving  men  to  knock  up  a  trading  post  near  the  suburb  now 
known  as  Fort  Rouge,  La  Verendrye,  on  September  26,  steers  his 
canoes  up  the  shallow  Assiniboine  far  as  what  is  now  known  as 
Portage  La  Prairie,  where  a  trail  leads  overland  to  the  Saskatch- 
ewan and  so  clown  to  the  English  traders  of  Hudson  Bay.  But 
this  is  not  the  trail  to  the  Western  Sea ;  La  Verendrye's  quest 
is  set  towards  those  people  "  who  live  on  the  great  waters  to 
the  south." 


FROM  ASSINIBOINE  TO   MISSOURI 


21  I 


Fort  de  La  Reine  is  built  at  the  Portage  of  the  Prairie,  and 
October  18,  to  beat  of  drum,  with  flag  flying,  La  Verendrye 
marches  forth  with  fifty-two  men  towards  Souris  River  for  the 
land  of  the  Mandanes  on  the  Missouri.  December  3  he  is 
welcomed  to  the  Mandane  villages;  but  here  is  no  Western  Sea, 
only  the  broad  current  of  the  Missouri  rolling  turbulent  and 
muddy  southward  towards  the  Mississippi ;  but  the  Mandanes 
tell  of  a  people  to  the  far  west,  "  who  live  on  the  great  waters 


MAP  SHOWING  THK  SUPPOSED  SEA  OF  THE   WEST,   WITH    APPROACHES 
TO  THE   MISSISSIPPI   AND   GREAT    LAKES,   PARIS,    1755 

bitter  for  drinking,  who  dress  in  armor  and  dwell  in  stone 
houses."  These  must  be  the  Spaniards.  La  Verendrye' s  quest 
has  become  a  receding  phantom.  Leaving  men  to  learn  the 
Missouri  dialects,  La  Verendrye  marched  in  the  teeth  of  mid- 
winter storms  back  to  the  Portage  of  the  Prairie  on  the  Assini- 
boine.  Of  that  march,  space  forbids  to  tell.  A  blizzard  raged, 
driving  the  fine  snows  into  eyes  and  skin  like  hot  salt.  When 
the  marchers  camped  at  night  they  had  to  bury  themselves  in 
snow  to  keep  from  freezing.  Drifts  covered  all  landmarks.  The 
men  lost  their  bearings,  doubled  back  on  their  own  tracks,  were 
frost-bitten,  buffeted  by  the  storm,  and  short  of  food.    Christmas 


2  12  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

was  passed  in  the  camps  of  wandering  Assiniboines,  and  Feb- 
ruary 10,  1739,  the  fifty  men  staggered,  weak  and  starving,  back 
to  the  Portage  of  the  Prairie. 

The  wanderings  of  La  Verendrye  and  his  sons  for  the  next 
few  years  led  southwestvvard  far  as  the  Rockies  in  the  region  of 
Montana,  northwestward  far  as  the  Bow  River  branch  of  the 
Saskatchewan.  Meanwhile,  all  La  Verendrye's  property  had 
been  seized  by  his  creditors.  Jealous  rivals  were  clamoring  for 
possession  of  his  fur  posts.  The  King  had  conferred  on  him 
the  Order  of  the  Cross  of  St.  Louis,  but  eighteen  years  of  ex- 
posure and  worry  had  broken  the  explorer's  health.  On  the  eve 
of  setting  out  again  for  the  west  he  died  suddenly  on  the  6th 
of  December,  1749,  at  Montreal. 

Look  again  at  the  map !  The  spokes  of  the  wheel  running 
out  from  Quebec  extend  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  on  the  south,  to 
the  Rockies  on  the  west,  to  Hudson  Bay  on  the  north.  And 
the  population  of  New  France  does  not  yet  number  60,000  peo- 
ple. Is  it  any  wonder  French  Canadians  look  back  on  these 
days  as  the  Golden  Age  ? 

And  while  the  bush  rovers  of  Canada  are  pushing  their  way 
through  the  wilderness  westward,  there  come  slashing,  tramp- 
ing, swearing,  stamping  through  the  mountainous  wilds  of  West 
and  East  Siberia  the  Cossack  soldiers  of  Peter  the  Great,  led  by 
the  Dane,  Vitus  Bering,  bound  on  discovery  to  the  west  coast  of 
America.  La  Verendrye's  men  have  crossed  only  half  a  conti- 
nent. Bering's  Russians  cross  the  width  of  two  continents, 
seven  thousand  miles,  then  launch  their  crazily  planked  ships 
over  unknown  northern  seas  for  America.  From  1729  to 
August  of  1742  toil  the  Russian  sea  voyagers.  Their  story  is 
not  part  of  Canada's  history.  Suffice  to  say,  December  of  1741 
finds  the  Russian  crews  cast  away  on  two  desert  islands  of 
Bering  Sea  west  of  Alaska,  now  known  as  the  Commander 
Islands.  Half  the  crew  of  seventy-seven  perish  of  starvation 
and  scurvy.  Bering  himself  lies  dying  in  a  sandpit,  with  the 
earth   spread   over  him   for  warmth.    Outside  the  sand  holes, 


INTRIGUE  WITH   INDIANS  213 

where  the  Russians  crouch,  scream  hurricane  gales  and  white 
billows  and  myriad  sea  birds.  The  ships  have  been  wrecked. 
The  Russians  are  on  an  unknown  island.  Day  dawn,  Decem- 
ber 8,  lying  half  buried  in  the  sand,  Bering  breathes  his  last. 
On  rafts  made  of  wreckage  the  remnant  of  his  crew  find  way 
back  to  Asia,  but  they  have  discovered  a  trail  across  the  sea 
to  a  new  land.  Fur  hunters  are  moving  from  the  east,  west- 
ward. Fur  hunters  are  moving  from  the  west,  eastward.  These 
two  tides  will  meet  and  clash  at  a  later  era. 

The  Treaty  of  Utrecht  had  stopped  open  war,  but  that  did 
not  prevent  the  bushrovers  from  raiding  the  border  lands  of 
Maine,  of  Massachusetts,  of  New  York.  The  story  of  one  raid 
is  the  story  of  all,  and  several  have  already  been  related.  Now 
comes  a  half  century  of  petty  war  that  raged  on  the  border 
lands  from  Saratoga  and  Northfield  to  Maine  and  New  Bruns- 
wick. The  story  of  these  "little  wars,"  as  the  French  called 
them,  belongs  more  to  the  history  of  the  United  States  than 
Canada. 

Nor  did  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  stop  the  double  dealing  and 
intrigue  by  which  European  rulers  sought  to  use  bigoted  mission- 
aries and  ignorant  Indians  as  pawns  in  the  game  of  statecraft. 

"  Sentiments  of  opposition  to  the  English  in  Acadia  must  be 
secretly  fostered,"  commanded  the  King  of  France  in  17 15,  two 
years  after  Acadia  had  been  deeded  over  to  England.  "  The  King 
is  pleased  with  the  efforts  of  Pere  Rasle  to  induce  the  Indians 
not  to  allow  the  English  to  settle  on  their  lands,"  runs  the 
royal  dispatch  of  172 1  regarding  the  border  massacres  of  Maine. 
"Advise  the  missionaries  in  Acadia  to  do  nothing  that  may 
serve  as  a  pretext  for  sending  them  out  of  the  country,  but  have 
them  induce  the  Indians  to  organize  enterprises  against  the 
English,"  command  the  royal  instructions  of  1744.  "The  In- 
dians," writes  the  Canadian  Governor,  "can  be  depended  on  to 
bring  in  the  scalps  of  the  English  as  long  as  we  furnish  ammu- 
nition. This  is  the  opinion  of  the  missionary,  M.  Ee  Eoutre." 
Again,  from  the  Governor  of  New  France  :  "  If  the  settlers  of 


214 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


Acadia  hesitate  to  rise  against  their  English  masters,  we  can 
employ  threats  of  the  Indians  and  force.  It  is  inconceivable  that 
the  English  would  try  to  remove  these  people.  Letters  from 
M.  Le  Loutre  report  that  his  Indians  have  intercepted  dispatches 
of  the  English  officers.  M.  Le  Loutre  will  keep  us  informed  of 
everything  in  Acadia.  We  have  furnished  him  with  secret  sig- 
nals to  our  ships,  which  will  tell  us  of  every  movement  on  the 
part  of  the  enemy." 

Of  all  the  hotbeds  of  intrigue,  Acadia,  from  its  position,  had 
become  the  worst.  Here  was  a  population  of  French  farmers, 
which  in  half  a  century  had  increased  to  12,000,  held  in  subjec- 
tion by  an  English  garrison  at  Annapolis  of  less  than  two  hun- 
dred soldiers  so  destitute  they  had  neither  shoes  nor  stockings, 
coats  nor  bedding.  The  French  were  guaranteed  in  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht  the  freedom  and  privileges  of  their  religion  by  the  Eng- 
lish ;  but  in  matters  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual  they  were  abso- 
lutely subject  to  priests,  acting  as  spies  for  the  Quebec  plotters. 

France,  as  has  been  told,  retained  Cape  Breton  (Isle  Royal) 
and  Prince  Edward  Island  (Isle  St.  Jean),  and  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht  had  hardly  been  signed  before  plans  were  drawn  on  a 
magnificent  scale  for  a  French  fort  on  Cape  Breton  to  effect  a 
threefold  purpose,  — to  command  the  sea  towards  Boston,  to  re- 
gain Acadia,  to  protect  the  approach  to  the  River  St.  Lawrence. 

The  Island  of  Cape  Breton  is  like  a  hand  with  its  fingers  stuck 
out  in  the  sea.  The  very  tip  of  a  long  promontory  commanding 
one  of  the  southern  arms  of  the  sea  was  chosen  for  the  fort  that 
was  to  be  the  strongest  in  all  America.  On  three  sides  were 
the  sea,  with  outlying  islands  suitable  for  powerful  batteries  and 
a  harbor  entrance  that  was  both  narrow  and  deep.  To  the  rear 
was  impassable  muskeg  —  quaking  moss  above  water-soaked  bog. 
Two  weaknesses  only  had  the  fort.  There  were  hills  to  right 
and  left  from  which  an  enemy  might  pour  destruction  inside  the 
walls,  but  the  royal  engineers  of  France  depended  on  the  out- 
lying island  batteries  preventing  any  enemy  gaining  possession 
of  these  hills.    By  1720  walls  thirty-six  feet  thick  had  encircled 


THE  BUILDING  OF  LOUISBURG 


215 


an  area  of  over  one  hundred  acres.  Outside  the  rear  wall  had 
been  excavated  a  ditch  forty  feet  deep  and  eighty  wide.  Bris- 
tling from  the  six  bastions  of  the  walls  were  more  than  one 
hundred  and  eighty  heavy  cannon.  Besides  the  two  batteries 
commanding  the  entrance  to  the  harbor  was  an  outer  Royal 
Battery  of  forty  cannon  directly  across  the  water  from  the  fort, 
on  the  next  finger  of  the  island.  Twenty  years  was  the  fort 
in  building,  costing  what  in  those  days  was  regarded  as  an  enor- 
mous sum  of  money,- — equal  to  $10,000,000.  Such  was  Louis- 
burg,  impregnable  as  far  as  human  foresight  could  judge, — 
the  refuge  of  corsairs  that  preyed  on  Boston  commerce  ;  the 
haven  of  the  schemers  who  intrigued  to  wean  away  the  Acadians 
from  English  rule,  the  guardian  sentinel  of  all  approach  to  the 
St.  Lawrence. 

"It  would  be  well,"  wrote  the  King  the  very  next  year  after 
the  treaty  was  signed,  "  to  attract  the  Acadians  to  Cape  Breton, 
but  act  with  caution."  And  now  twenty  years  had  passed. 
Some  Acadians  had  gone  to  Cape  Breton  and  others  to  Prince 
Edward  Island  ;  but  statecraft  judged  the  simple  Acadian 
farmer  would  be  more  useful  where  he  was,  —  on  the  spot  in 
Acadia,  ready  to  rebel  when  open  war  would  give  the  French  of 
Louisburg  a  chance  to  invade. 

Late  in  1744  Europe  breaks  into  that  flame  of  war  known  as 
the  Austrian  Succession.  Before  either  Quebec  or  Boston  knows 
of  open  war,  Louisburg  has  word  of  it  and  sends  her  rangers 
burning  fishing  towns  and  battering  at  the  rotten  palisades  of 
Annapolis  (Port  Royal).  Port  Royal  is  commanded  by  that  same 
Paul  Mascarene  of  former  wars,  grown  old  in  service.  The 
French  bid  him  save  himself  by  surrender  before  their  fleet 
comes.  Though  Mascarene  has  less  than  a  hundred  men,  the 
weather  is  in  his  favor.  It  is  September.  Winter  will  drive  the 
invaders  home,  so  he  sends  back  word  that  he  will  bide  his 
time  till  the  hostile  fleet  comes.  As  tor  the  Abbe  Le  Loutre, 
let  the  treacherous  priest  beware  how  lie  brings  his  murderous 
Indians  within  range  of  the  fort  guns!  Meanwhile  the  Acadian 
habitants  are  threatened  with  death  if  they  do  not  rise  to  aid  the 


2i6  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

French,  but  they  too  bide  their  time,  for  if  they  rebel  and  fail, 
that  too  means  death;  and  "the  Neutrals"  refuse  to  stir  till 
the  invaders,  from  lack  of  provisions,  are  forced  to  decamp,  and 
the  Abbe  Le  Loutre,  with  his  black  hat  drawn  down  over  his 
eyes,  vanishes  into  forest  with  his  crew  of  painted  warriors. 

News  of  the  war  and  of  the  ravaging  of  Acadian  fishing  towns 
set  Massachusetts  in  flame.  To  Boston,  above  all  New  England 
towns,  was  Louisburg  a  constant  danger.  The  thing  seemed 
absolute  stark  madness,  —  the  thoughtless  daring  of  foolhardy 
enthusiasts,  —  but  it  is  ever  enthusiasm  which  accomplishes  the 
impossible  ;  and  April  30,  1745,  after  only  seven  weeks  of  prep- 
aration, an  English  fleet  of  sixty-eight  ships  —  some  accounts 
say  ninety,  including  the  whalers  and  transports  gathered  along 
the  coast  towns  —  sails  into  Gabarus  Bay,  behind  Louisburg, 
where  the  waters  have  barely  cleared  of  ice.  William  Pepper- 
roll,  a  merchant,  commands  the  four  thousand  raw  levies  of 
provincial  troops,  the  most  of  whom  have  never  stepped  to 
martial  music  before  in  their  lives.  Admiral  Warren  has  come 
up  from  West  India  waters  with  his  men-of-war  to  command 
the  united  fleets.  Early  Monday  morning,  against  a  shore  wind, 
the  boats  are  tacking  to  land,  when  the  alarm  bells  begin  ring- 
ing and  ringing  at  Louisburg  and  a  force  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
men  dashes  downshore  for  Flat  Cove  to  prevent  the  landing. 
Pepperrell  out-tricks  the  enemy  by  leaving  only  a  few  boats  to 
make  a  feint  of  landing  at  the  Cove,  while  he  swings  his  main 
fleet  inshore  round  a  bend  in  the  coast  a  mile  away.  Here,  with 
a  prodigious  rattling  of  lowered  sails  and  anchor  chains,  the 
crews  plunge  over  the  rolling  waves,  pontooning  a  bridge  of 
small  boats  ashore.  By  nightfall  the  most  of  the  English  have 
landed,  and  spies  report  the  harbor  of  Louisburg  alive  with 
torches  where  the  French  are  sinking  ships  to  obstruct  the 
entrance  and  setting  fire  to  fishing  stages  that  might  inter- 
fere with  cannon  aim.  The  next  night,  May  1,  Vaughan's  New 
Hampshire  boys — -raw  farmers,  shambling  in  their  gait,  singing 
as   they   march  —  swing   through   the    woods   along   the    marsh 


THE  SIEGE  OF  THE  GREAT  FORT 


217 


behind  the  fort,  and  take  up  a  position  on  a  hill  to  the  far  side  of 
Louisburg,  creating  an  enormous  bonfire  with  the  French  tar 
and   ships'   tackling   stored   here.    The   result   of   this   harmless 


WILLIAM    PEPPERRELL 


maneuver  was  simply  astounding.  It  will  be  recalled  that  Louis- 
burg had  an  outer  batter}-  of  forty  cannon  on  this  side.  The 
French  soldiers  holding  this  battery  mistook  the  bonfire  for  the 


2l8  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

English  attacking  forces,  and  under  cover  of  darkness  abandoned 
the  position,  — battery,  guns,  powder  and  all,  —  which  the  Eng- 
lish promptly  seized.  This  was  the  Royal  Battery,  which  com- 
manded the  harbor  and  could  shell  into  the  very  heart  of  the  fort. 
The  next  thing  for  the  English  was  to  get  their  heavy  guns 
ashore  through  a  rolling  surf  of  ice-cold  water.  For  two  weeks 
the  men  stood  by  turns  to  their  necks  in  the  surf,  steadying  the 
pontoon  gangway  as  the  great  cannon  were  trundled  ashore  ;  and 
this  was  the  least  of  their  difficulties.  The  question  was  how  to 
get  their  cannon  across  the  marsh  behind  the  fort  to  the  hill  on 
the  far  side.  The  cannon  would  sink  from  their  own  weight  in 
such  a  bog,  and  either  horses  or  oxen  would  flounder  to  death 
in  a  few  minutes.  Again,  the  fool-hardy  enthusiasm  of  the  raw 
levies  overcame  the  difficulty.  They  built  large  stone  boats, 
raft-shaped,  such  as  are  used  on  farms  to  haul  stones  over  ground 
too  rough  for  wagons.  Hitching  to  these,  teams  of  two  hundred 
men  stripped  to  midwaist,  they  laboriously  hauled  the  cannon 
across  the  quaking  moss  to  the  hills  commanding  the  rear  of  the 
fort,  bombs  and  balls  whizzing  overhead  all  the  while,  fired  from 
the  fort  bastions.  It  was  cold,  damp  spring  weather.  The  men 
who  were  not  soaked  to  their  necks  in  surf  and  bog  were  doing 
picket  duty  alongshore,  sleeping  in  their  boots.  Consequently, 
in  three  weeks,  half  Pepperrell's  force  became  deadly  ill.  At  this 
time,  within  two  days,  occurred  both  a  cheering  success  and  a  dis- 
heartening rebuff.  A  French  man-of-war  with  seventy  cannon 
and  six  hundred  men  was  seen  entering  Louisburg.  As  if  in 
panic  fright,  one  of  the  small  English  ships  fled.  The  French 
ship  pursued.  In  a  trice  she  was  surrounded  by  the  English  fleet 
and  captured.  The  flight  of  the  little  vessel  had  been  a  trick. 
A  few  days  later  four  hundred  English  in  whaleboats  attempted 
the  mad  project  of  attacking  the  Island  Battery  at  the  harbor 
entrance.  The  boats  set  out  about  midnight  with  muffled  oars, 
but  a  wind  rose,  setting  a  tremendous  surf  lashing  the  rocks, 
and  yet  the  invaders  might  have  succeeded  but  for  a  piece  <>l 
rashness.  A  hundred  men  had  gained  the  shore  when,  with 
the  thoughtlessness  of  schoolboys,  they  uttered  a  jubilant  yell. 


JOKES  BANDIED  BY   FIGHTERS 


219 


Instantly,  porthole,  platform,  gallery,  belched  death  through  the 
darkness.  The  story  is  told  that  a  raw  New  England  lad  was  in 
the  act  of  climbing  the  French  flagstaff  to  hang  out  his  own 
red  coat  as  English  flag  when  a  Swiss  guard  hacked  him  to 
pieces.  The  boats  not  yet  ashore  were  sunk  by  the  blaze  of 
cannon.  A  few  escaped  back  in  the  darkness,  but  by  daylight 
over  one  hundred  English  had  been  captured.  Cannon,  mortars, 
and  musketoons  were  mounted  to  command  the  fort  inside  the 
walls,  and  a  continuous  rain  of  fire  began  from  the  hills.    In  vain 


RUINS  OF  THE    FORTIFICATIONS   AT   LOUISBURG 

Duchambon,  the  French  commander,  waited  for  reinforcements 
from  Canada.  Convent,  hospital,  barracks,  all  the  houses  of  the 
town,  were  peppered  by  bombs  till  there  was  not  a  roof  intact  in 
the  place.  The  soldiers,  of  whom  there  were  barely  two  thousand, 
were  ready  to  mutiny.  The  citizens  besought  Duchambon  to 
surrender.  Provisions  ran  out.  Looking  down  from  the  tops  of 
the  walls,  cracking  jokes  with  the  English  across  the  ditch,  the 
French  soldiers  counted  more  than  a  thousand  scaling  ladders 
ready  for  hand-to-hand  assault,  and  a  host  of  barrels. filled  with 
mud  behind  which  the  English  sharpshooters  crouched.  It  had 
just    been   arranged    between   Warren    and    Pepperrell    that    the 


220  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

former  should  attack  by  sea  while  the  latter  assaulted  by  land, 
when  on  June  16  the  French  capitulated.  How  the  New  Eng- 
land enthusiasts  ran  rampant  through  the  abandoned  French 
fort  need  not  be  told.  How  Parson  Moody,  famous  for  his  long 
prayers,  hewed  down  images  in  the  Catholic  chapel  till  he  was 
breathless  and  then  came  to  the  officers'  state  dinner  so  ex- 
hausted that  when  asked  to  pronounce  blessing  he  could  only 
mutter,  "  Good  Lord,  we  have  so  much  to  thank  Thee  for, 
time  is  too  short;  we  must  leave  it  to  eternity.  Amen";  how 
the  New  Englanders,  unused  to  French  wines,  drank  themselves 
torpid  on  the  stores  of  the  fort  cellar ;  how  the  French  the  next 
year  made  superhuman  effort  to  regain  Louisburg,  only  to  have 
a  magnificent  fleet  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  sail  wrecked  on 
Sable  Island,  Duke  d'Anville,  the  commander,  dying  of  heart- 
break on  his  ship  anchored  near  Halifax,  his  successor  killing 
himself  with  his  own  sword,  —  cannot  be  told  here.  Louisburg 
was  the  prize  of  the  war,  and  England  threw  the  prize  away  by 
giving  it  back  to  France  in  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  in  1748. 
The  English  government  paid  back  the  colonies  for  their  outlay, 
but  of  all  the  rich  French  pirate  ships  loaded  with  booty,  cap- 
tured at  Louisburg  by  leaving  the  French  flag  flying,  not  a 
penny's  worth  went  to  the  provincial  troops.  Warren's  seamen 
received  all  the  loot. 

Like  all  preceding  treaties,  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  left 
unsettled  the  boundaries  between  New  France  and  New  Eng- 
land. In  Acadia,  in  New  York,  on  the  Ohio,  collisions  were 
bound  to  come. 

In  Acadia  the  English  send  their  officers  to  the  Isthmus  of 
Chignecto  to  establish  a  fort  near  the  bounds  of  what  are  now 
Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick.  The  priestly  spy,  Louis 
Joseph  Le  Loutre,  leads  his  wild  Micmac  savages  through  the 
farm  settlement  round  the  English  fort,  setting  fire  to  houses, 
putting  a  torch  even  to  the  church,  and  so  compelling  the  habit- 
ants of  the  boundary  to  come  over  to  the  French  and  take  sides. 
The  treaty  has  restored  Louisburg  to  the  French,  but  the  very 


QUARRELS  LEFT  UNSETTLED 


22  I 


next  year  England  sends  out  Edward  Cornwallis  with  two  thou- 
sand settlers  to  establish  the  English  fort  now  known  as  Halifax. 
By  1752  there  are  four  thousand  people  at  the  new  fort,  though 
the  Indian  raiders  miss  no  occasion  to  shoot  down  way- 
farers and  farmers  ;  and  the  French  Governor  at  Quebec  con- 
tinues his  bribes  —  as  much  as  eight  hundred  dollars  a  year  to  a 
man  —  to  stir  up  hostility  to  the  English  and  prevent  the  Acadian 


CONTEMPORARY   PLAN   OF   THE   ATTACK   ON   LOUISBURG 

farmers  taking  the  oath  of  fidelity  to  England.    So  much  for  the 
peace  treaty  in  Acadia.    It  was  not  peace  ;  it  was  farce. 

In  New  York  state  matters  were  worse.  The  Iroquois  had 
been  acknowledged  allies  of  the  English,  and  before  1730  the 
English  fort  at  Oswego  had  been  built  at  the  southeast  corner 
of  Lake  Ontario  to  catch  the  fur  trade  of  the  northern  tribes 
coming  clown  the  lakes  to  New  France,  and  to  hold  the  Iroquois' 
friendship.  Also,  as  French  traders  pass  up  the  lake  to  Fort 
Frontenac  (Kingston)  and  Niagara  with  their  national  flag  flying 
from  the  prow  of  canoe  and  flatboat,  chance  bullets  from  the 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


English  fort  ricochet  across  the  advancing  prows,  and  soldiers 
on  the  galleries  inside  Fort  Oswego  take  bets  on  whether  they 
can  hit  the  French  flag.  Prompt  as  a  gamester,  New  France 
checkmates  this  move.  Peter  Schuyler  has  been  settling  Eng- 
lish farmers  round  Lake  Champlain.  At  Crown  Point,  long- 
known    as   Scalp  Point, 


1  i  ".Vc'^i4  I 


FORT    PRESENTATION 


where  the  lake  narrows 
and  portage  runs  across 
to  Lake  George  and  the 
Mohawk  land,  the  French 
in  1 73 1  erect  a  strong 
fort.  As  for  the  English 
traders  at  Fort  Oswego 
catching  the  tribes  from 
the  north,  New  France 
counterchecks  that  by 
sending  Portneuf  in  April 
of  1 749,  only  a  year  after 
the  peace,  to  the  Toronto 
portage  where  the  Indians  come  from  the  Upper  Lakes  by  way  of 
Lake  Simcoe.  What  is  now  known  as  Toronto  is  named  Rouille, 
after  a  French  minister ;  and  as  if  this  were  not  checkmate  enough 
to  the  English  advancing  westward,  the  Sulpician  priest  from 
Montreal,  Abbe  Picquet,  zealously  builds  a  fort  straight  north 
of  Oswego,  on  the  south  side  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  to  keep  the 
Iroquois  loyal  to  France.  Picquet  calls  his  fort  "  Presentation." 
His  enemies  call  it  "  Picquet's  Folly."  It  is  known  to-day  as 
Ogdensburg.  Look  at  the  map.  France's  frontier  line  is  guarded 
by  forts  that  stand  like  sentinels  at  the  gateways  of  all  waters 
leading  to  the  interior,  —  Ogdensburg,  Kingston,  Toronto,  Niagara, 
Detroit,  Michilimackinac,  and  La  Verendrye's  string  of  forts  far 
west  as  the  Rockies.  New  York's  frontier  line  is  guarded  by  one 
fort  only,  —  Oswego.  Here  too,  as  in  Acadia,  the  peace  is  a  farce. 
But  it  was  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio  where  the  greatest  strug- 
gle over  boundaries  took  place.  One  year  after  the  peace,  Celo- 
ron  de  Bienville  is  sent  in  July,  1749,  to  take  possession  of  the 


BEYOND  THE  ALLEGHENIES 


223 


Ohio  for  France.  France  claims  right  to  this  region  by  virtue  of 
La  Salle's  explorations  sixty  years  previously,  and  of  all  those 
French  bushrangers  who  have  roved  the  wilds  from  the  Great 
Lakes  to  Louisiana.  Small  token  did  France  take  of  La  Salle's 
exploits  while  he  lived,  but  great  store  do  her  statesmen  set  by 
his  voyages  now  that  he  has  been  sixty  years  dead.  "  But  pause  !  " 
commands  the  English  Governor  of  Virginia.  "  Since  time  imme- 
morial have  our  traders  wandered  over  the  Great  Smoky  Moun- 
tains, over  the  Cumberlands,  over  the  Alleghenies,  down  the 
Tennessee  and  the  Kanawha  and  the  Monongahela  and  the  Ohio 
to  the  Mississippi."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  Major  General 
Wood  had  in  1670  and  1674  sent  his  men  overland,  if  not  so  far 
as  the  Mississippi,  then  certainly  as  far  as  the  Ohio  and  the  valley 
of  the  Mississippi.  But  Wood  was  a  private  adventurer.  For 
years  his  exploit  had  been  forgotten.  No  record  of  it  remained 
but  an  account  written  by  his  men,  Batts  and  Hallam.  The 
French  declared  the  record  was  a  myth,  and  it  has,  in  fact,  been 


CONTEMPORARY   VIEW   OF   OSWEGO 


so  regarded  by  the  most  of  historians.  Yet,  curiously  enough, 
ranging  through  some  old  family  papers  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  in  the  Public  Records,  London,  I  found  with  Wood's 
own  signature  his  record  of  the  trip  across  the  mountains  to  the 
Indians  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi.    It  is  probable  that  the 


224  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

English  cared  quite  as  much  for  claims  founded  on  La  Salle's 
voyage  as  the  French  cared  for  claims  founded  on  the  horseback 
trip  of  Major  General  Wood's  men.  The  fact  remained  :  here 
were  the  English  traders  from  Virginia  pressing  northward  by 
way  of  the  Ohio  ;  here  were  the  French  adventurers  pressing 
south  by  way  of  the  Ohio.  As  in  Acadia  and  New  York,  peace 
or  no  peace,  a  clash  was  inevitable. 

Duquesne  has  come  out  governor  of  Canada,  and  by  1753  has 
dispatched  a  thousand  men  into  the  Ohio  valley,  who  blaze  a 
trail  through  the  wilderness  and  string  a  line  of  forts  from  Presqu' 
Isle  ( Erie )  on  Lake  Erie  southward  to  Fort  Duquesne  at  the 
junction  of  the  Allegheny  and  Monongahela,  where  Pittsburg 
stands  to-day. 

One  December  night  at  Fort  Le  Bceuf,  on  the  trail  to  the  Ohio, 
the  French  commandant  was  surprised  to  see  a  slim  youth  of 
twenty  years  ride  out  of  the  rain-drenched,  leafless  woods,  followed 
by  four  or  five  whites  and  Indians  with  a  string  of  belled  pack- 
horses.  The  young  gentleman  introduces  himself  with  great  for- 
mality, though  he  must  use  an  interpreter,  for  he  does  not  speak 
French.  He  is  Major  George  Washington,  sent  by  Governor 
Dinwiddie  of  Virginia  to  know  why  the  French  have  been  seizing 
the  fur  posts  of  English  traders  in  this  region.  The  French  com- 
mander, Saint  Pierre,  receives  the  young  Virginian  courteously, 
plies  master  and  men  with  such  lavish  hospitality  that  Washington 
has  much  trouble  to  keep  his  drunk  Indians  from  deserting,  and 
dismisses  his  visitor  with  the  smooth  but  bootless  response  that 
as  France  and  England  are  at  peace  he  cannot  answer  Governor 
Dinwiddie's  message  till  he  has  heard  from  the  Governor  of  Can- 
ada, Marquis  Duquesne.  Not  much  satisfaction  for  emissaries 
who  had  forded  ice-rafted  rivers  and  had  tramped  the  drifted 
forests  for  three  hundred  miles. 

By  January  of  1754  Washington  is  back  in  Virginia.  By  May  he 
is  on  the  trail  again,  blazing  a  path  through  the  wilderness  down 
the  Monongahela  towards  the  French  fort  ;  for  what  purpose 
one  may  guess,  though  these  were  times  of  piping  peace.     Come 


WASHINGTON  AND  JUMONVILLE 


225 


an  old  Indian  chief  and  an  English  bushwhacker  one  morning 
with  word  that  fifty  French  raiders  are  on  the  trail  ten  miles 
away  ;  for  what  purpose  one  may  guess,  spite  of  peace.  Instantly 
Washington  sends  half  a  hundred  Virginia  frontiersmen  out  scout- 
ing. They  find  no  trace  of  raiders,  but  the  old  chief  picks  up  the 
trail  of  the  ambushed  French.  Here  they  had  broken  branches 
going  through  the  woods; 
there  a  moccasin  track 
punctures  the  spongy 
mold  ;  here  leaves  have 
been  scattered  to  hide 
camp  ashes.  At  mid- 
night, with  the  rain 
slashing  through  the  for- 
est black  as  pitch,  Wash- 
ington sets  out  with  forty 
men,  following  his  Indian 
guide.  Through  the  dark 
they  feel  rather  than  fol- 
low the  trail,  and  it  is 
a  slow  but  an  easy  trick 
to  those  acquainted  with 
wild  wood  travel.  Leave 
the  path  by  as  much  as 
a  foot  length  and  the  foli- 
age lashes  you  back,  or  the  windfall  trips  you  up,  or  the  punky 
path  becomes  punctured  beneath  moccasin  tread.  By  day  dawn, 
misty  and  gray  in  the  May  woods,  the  English  are  at  the  Indian 
camp  and  march  forward  escorted  by  the  redskins,  single  file, 
silent  as  ghosts,  alert  as  tigers.  Raindrip  swashes  on  the  buck- 
skin coats.  Muskets  are  loaded  and  carefully  cased  from  the  wet. 
The  old  chief  stops  suddenly  .  .  .  and  points  !  There  lie  the 
French  in  a  rock  ravine  sheltered  by  the  woods  like  a  cave.  The 
next  instant  the  French  had  leaped  up  with  a  whoop.  Wash- 
ington shouted  "Fire!  "  When  the  smoke  of  the  musket  crash 
cleared,  ten  French  lay  dead,  among  them  their  officer,  J  union ville ; 


GOVERNOR   DINWIDDIE   OF   VIRGINIA 


226  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

and  twenty-two  others  surrendered.  No  need  to  dispute  whether 
Washington  was  justified  in  firing  on  thirty  bushrovers  in  time 
of  peace  !  The  bushrovers  had  already  seized  English  forts  and 
were  even  now  scouring  the  country  for  English  traders.  For  a 
week  their  scouts  had  followed  Washington  as  spies. 

Expecting  instant  retaliation  from  Fort  Duquesne,  Washington 
retreated  swiftly  to  his  camping  place  at  Great  Meadows  and  cast 
up  a  log  barricade  known  as  Fort  Necessity.  A  few  days  later 
comes  a  company  of  regular  troops.  By  July  i  he  has  some  four 
hundred  men,  but  at  Fort  Duquesne  are  fourteen  hundred  French. 
The  French  wait  only  for  orders  from  Quebec,  then  march  nine 
hundred  bushrovers  against  Washington.  July  3,  towards  mid- 
day, they  burst  from  the  woods  whooping  and  yelling.  Washing- 
ton chose  to  meet  them  on  the  open  ground,  but  the  French  were 
pouring  a  cross  fire  over  the  meadow ;  and  to  compel  them  to 
attack  in  the  open,  Washington  drew  his  men  behind  the  barri- 
cade. By  nightfall  the  Virginians  were  out  of  powder.  Twelve 
had  been  killed  and  forty-three  were  wounded.  Before  midnight 
the  French  beat  a  parley.  All  they  desired  was  that  the  English 
evacuate  the  fort.  To  fight  longer  would  have  risked  the  exter- 
mination of  Washington's  troops.  Terms  of  honorable  surrender 
were  granted,  and  the  next  day  —  the  day  which  Washington  was 
to  make  immortal,  July  4  —  the  English  retreated  from  Fort 
Necessity.    Such  was  the  peace  in  the  Ohio  valley. 

Though  the  peace  is  still  continued,  England  dispatches  in 
1755  two  regiments  of  the  line  under  Major  General  Braddock  to 
protect  Virginia,  along  with  a  fleet  of  twelve  men-of-war  under 
Admiral  Boscawen.  France  keeps  up  the  farce  by  sending  out 
Baron  Dieskau  with  three  thousand  soldiers  and  Admiral  La  Motte 
with  eighteen  ships.  Coasting  off  Newfoundland,  the  English 
encounter  three  of  the  French  ships  that  have  gone  astray  in 
the  fog.  "Is  it  peace  or  war?"  shout  the  French  across  decks. 
"  Peace,"  answers  a  voice  from  the  English  deck  ;  and  instan- 
taneously a  hurricane  cannonade  rakes  the  decks  of  the  French, 
killing  eighty.  Two  of  the  French  ships  surrendered.  The  other 
escaped  through  the  fog.    Such  was  the  peace  ! 


BRADDOCK'S  MARCH 


227 


So  began  the  famous  Seven  Years'  War ;  and  Major  General 
Braddock,  in  session  with  the  colonial  governors,  plans  the  cam- 
paign that  is  to  crush  New  France's  pretensions  south  of  the 
Great  Lakes.  Acadia,  Lake  Champlain,  the  Ohio,  —  these  are  to 
be  the  theaters  of  the 
contest. 

Braddock  himself,  ac- 
companied by  Wash- 
ington, marches  with 
twenty-two  hundred  men 
over  the  Alleghenies 
along  the  old  trail  of  the 
Monongahela  against 
Fort  Duquesne.  Of 
Braddock,  the  least  said 
the  better.  A  gambler, 
full  of  arrogant  contempt 
towards  all  people  and 
things  that  were  not  Brit- 
ish, hail-fellow-well-met 
to  his  boon  companions, 
heartless  towards  all  out- 
side the  pale  of  his  own 
pride,  a  blustering  bully 
yet  dogged,  and  withal 
a  gentleman  after  the 
standard'  of  the  age,  he 
was  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  the  times  in 
which  he  lived.  Of  Brad- 
dock's  men,  fifteen  hundred  were  British  regulars,  the  rest  Vir- 
ginian bushfighters  ;  and  the  redcoat  troops  held  such  contempt 
towards  the  buckskin  frontiersmen  that  friction  arose  from  the 
first  about  the  relative  rank  of  regulars  and  provincials.  From 
the  time  they  set  out,  the  troops  had  been  retarded  by  countless 
delays.     There    was   trouble   buying  up   supplies   of   beef  cattle 


/'.',  *'„,>      .;Ve?, 

T    II    E 

JOURNAL 

O     F 

Major    George  fViafljwgton^ 

S  F.  N  T    BY     THE 

Uon.    ROBERT  DINWIDDlE,  Efq? 
His  Majefty's  Lieutenant-Governor,    and 
Commander  in  Chief  of  VIRGINIA, 

TO        THE 

C  O  M  M  A  N  D  A  N  T 

OF     THE 

FRENCH    FORCES 

O  N 

OHIO. 

TOWH.CH    »I 

GOVERNOR'S    letter, 

And    a  TRANSLATION  op    the 

French     OFFICER'S     ANSWER* 

W  ILL!  A  M  S  B  V  RGi 

Printed  by  W  1LLIAM  HUN  T  E  R.    1754] 

TITLE-PAGE  OF  WASHINGTON  S  JOURNAL 


228  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

among  the  frontiersmen.  Scouts  scoured  the  country  for  horses 
and  wagons  to  haul  the  great  guns  and  heavy  artillery.  Brad- 
dock's  high  mightiness  would  take  no  advice  from  colonials  about 
single-file  march  on  a  bush  trail  and  swift  raids  to  elude  am- 
bushed foes.  Everything  proceeded  slowly,  ponderously,  with  the 
system  and  routine  of  an  English  guardroom.  Scouts  to  the  fore 
and  on  both  flanks,  three  hundred  bushwhackers  went  ahead 
widening  the  bridle  path  to  a  twelve-foot  road  for  the  wagons ; 
and  along  this  road  moved  the  troops,  five  and  six  abreast,  the 
red  coats  agleam  through  the  forest  foliage,  drums  roiling,  flags 
flying,  steps  keeping  time  as  if  on  parade,  Braddock  and  his 
officers  mounted  on  spirited  horses,  the  heavy  artillery  and  sup- 
ply wagons  lagging  far  behind  in  a  winding  line. 

What  happened  has  been  told  times  without  number  in  story 
and  history.  It  was  what  the  despised  colonials  feared  and  any 
bushranger  could  have  predicted.  July  9,  in  stifling  heat,  the 
marchers  had  come  to  a  loop  in  the  Monongahela  River.  Brad- 
dock  thought  to  avoid  the  loop  by  fording  twice.  He  was  now 
within  eight  miles  of  Fort  Duquesne  —  the  modern  Pittsburg. 
Though  Indian  raiders  had  scalped  some  wanderers  from  the  trail 
and  insolent  messages  had  been  occasionally  found  scrawled  in 
French  on  birch  trees,  not  a  Frenchman  had  been  seen  on  the 
march.  The  advance  guard  had  crossed  the  second  ford  about 
midday  when  the  road  makers  at  a  little  opening  beyond  the  river 
saw  a  white  man  clothed  in  buckskin,  but  wearing  an  officer's 
badge,  dash  out  of  the  woods  to  the  fore,  wave  his  hat,  .  .  .  and 
disappear.  A  moment  later  the  well-known  war  whoop  of  the 
French  bushrovers  tore  the  air  to  tatters  ;  and  bullets  rained  from 
ambushed  foes  in  a  sheet  of  fire.  In  vain  the  English  drums 
rolled  .  .  .  and  rolled  .  .  .  and  soldiers  shouted,  "  The  King  ! 
God  save  the  King!  "  One  officer  tried  to  rally  his  men  to  rush 
the  woods,  but  they  were  shot  down  by  a  torrent  of  bullets  from 
an  unseen  foe.  The  Virginian  bushfighters  alone  knew  how  to 
meet  such  an  emergency.  Jumping  from  tree  to  tree  for  shelter 
like  Indians  dancing  sideways  to  avoid  the  enemy's  aim,  they  had 
broken  from  rank  to  fight  in  bushman  fashion  when  Braddock 


DEFEAT  OF  BRADDOCK 


229 


came  galloping  furiously  from  the  rear  and  ordered  them  back  in 
line.  What  use  was  military  rank  with  an  invisible  foe  ?  As  well 
shoot  air  as  an  unseen  Indian  !  Again  the  Virginians  broke  rank, 
and  the  regulars,  huddled  together  like  cattle  in  the  shambles, 
fired  blindly  and  succeeded  only  in  hitting  their  own  provincial 
troops.  Braddock  stormed  and  swore  and  rode  like  a  fury  incar- 
nate, roaring  orders  which  no  one  could  hear,  much  less  obey. 
Five  horses  were  shot  under  him  and  the  dauntless  commander 


f A ........  ,        ,   -  . .  '  t.. _  .  /.. 


c  fa*  $*£&•//£*  <i'  ••■■■/  ■  ■'? — 

d-Meq-uVCAu*, - 

v^^'L, 


-V.  iv  -   / 

..-„7>.-,.-.^l.,/,.. 


\./:,^ii.Aj' _ 


■  w 


A   SKETCH   OF   THE    FIELD    OF   BATTLE    AT   BRADDOCK's   DEFEAT 

had  mounted  a  fresh  one  when  the  big  guns  came  plunging  for- 
ward ;  but  the  artillery  on  which  Braddock  had  pinned  his  faith 
only  plowed  pits  in  the  forest  mold.  Of  eighty  officers,  sixt) 
had  fallen  and  a  like  proportion  of  men.  Braddock  ordered  a 
retreat.  The  march  became  a  panic,  the  panic  frenzied  terror,  the 
men  who  had  stood  so  stolidly  under  withering  fire  now  dashing 
in  headlong  flight  from  the  second  to  the  first  ford  and  back  over 
the  trail,  breathless  as  if  pursued  by  demons  !  Artillery,  cattle, 
supplies,  dispatch  boxes, — all  were  abandoned.  Washington's 
clothes  had  been  riddled  by  bullets,  but  he  had  escaped  injury. 
Braddock  reeled  from  his  horse  mortally  wounded,  to  be  carried 


230 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


back  on  a  litter  to  that  scene  of  Washington's  surrender  the  year 
before.  Four  days  later  the  English  general  died  there.  Of  the 
English  troops,  more  than  a  thousand  lay  dead,  blistering  in  the 
July  sun,  maimed  and  scalped  by  the  Indians.  Braddock  was 
buried  in  his  soldier's  coat  beside  the  trail,  all  signs  of  the  grave 

effaced   to  prevent  van- 
dalism. 

Of  all  the  losses  the 
most  serious  were  the 
dispatch  boxes  ;  for  they 
contained  the  English 
plans  of  campaign  from 
Acadia  to  Niagara,  and 
were  carried  back  to  Fort 
Duquesne,  where  they 
put  the  French  on  guard. 
The  jubilant  joy  at  the 
French  fort  need  not  be 
described.  When  he 
heard  of  the  English  ad- 
vance, Contrecoeur,  the 
commander,  had  been 
cooped  up  with  less  than 
one  thousand  men,  half 
of  whom  were  Indians. 
Had  Braddock  once 
reached  Fort  Duquesne, 
he  could  have  starved  it 
into  surrender  without  firing  a  gun,  or  shelled  it  into  kindling 
wood  with  his  heavy  artillery.  Beaujeu,  an  officer  under  Contre- 
coeur, had  volunteered  to  go  out  and  meet  the  English.  "  My  son, 
my  son,  will  you  walk  into  the  arms  of  death  ?  "  demanded  the 
Indian  chiefs.  "My  fathers,  will  you  allow  me  to  go  alone?" 
answered  Beaujeu  ;  and  out  he  sallied  with  six  hundred  picked 
men.  It  was  Beaujeu  whom  Braddock's  men  had  seen  dash  out 
and  wave  his  hat.    The  brave  Frenchman  fell,  shot  at  the  first 


PLAN  OF   FORT    BEAUSEJOUR 


abbe"  le  LOUTRE  231 

volley  from  the  English,  and  his  Indian  friends  avenged  his  death 
by  roasting  thirty  English  prisoners  alive. 

The  Isthmus  of  Chignecto,  or  the  boundary  between  New- 
Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia,  was  the  scene  of  the  border-land 
fights  in  Acadia.  To  narrate  half  the  forays,  raids,  and  ambus- 
cades would  require  a  volume.  Fights  as  gallant  as  Dollard's 
at  the  Sault  waged  from  Beausejour,  the  French  fort  north  of 
the  boundary,  to  Grand  Pre  and  Annapolis,  where  the  English 
were  stationed.  After  the  founding  of  Halifax  the  Abbe  Le 
Loutre,  whose  false,  foolish  counsels  had  so  often  endangered 
the  habitant  farmer,  moved  from  his  mission  in  the  center  of 
Acadia  up  to  Beausejour  on  the  New  Brunswick  side.  Here  he 
could  be  seen  with  his  Indians  toiling  like  a  demon  over  the 
trenches,  when  Monckton,  the  English  general,  came  on  June 
1,  1855,  with  the  British  fleet,  to  land  his  forces  at  Fort  Lawrence, 
the  English  post  on  the  south  side.  Colonel  Lawrence  was  now 
English  governor  of  Acadia,  and  he  had  decided  with  Monckton 
that  once  and  for  all  the  French  of  Acadia  must  be  subju- 
gated. The  French  of  Beausejour  had  in  all  less  than  fifteen 
hundred  men,  half  of  whom  were  simple  Acadian  farmers  forced 
into  unwilling  service  by  the  priest's  threats  of  Indian  raid  in 
this  world  and  damnation  in  the  next.  Da)-  dawn  of  June  4 
the  bugles  blew  to  arms  and  the  English  forces,  some  four  thou- 
sand, had  marched  to  the  south  shore  of  the  Missaguash  River, 
when  the  French  on  the  north  side  uttered  a  whoop  and  emitted 
a  clatter  of  shots.  Black-hatted,  sinister,  tireless,  the  priest  could 
be  seen  urging  his  Indians  on.  The  English  brought  up  three 
field  cannon  and  under  protection  of  their  scattering  fire  laid  a 
pontoon  bridge.  Crossing  the  river,  they  marched  within  a  mile 
of  the  fort.  That  night  the  sky  was  alight  with  flame  ;  for  Vergor, 
the  French  commander,  and  Abbe  Le  Loutre  set  fire  to  all  houses 
outside  the  fort  walls.  In  a  few  days  the  English  cannon  had 
been  placed  in  a  circle  round  the  fort,  and  set  such  strange  music 
humming  in  the  ears  of  the  besieged  that  the  Acadian  farmers 
deserted  and  the  priest  nervously  thought  of  (light.     Louisburg 


2-;2 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


could  send  no  aid,  and  still  the  bombs  kept  bursting  through  the 
roofs  of  the  fort  houses.  One  morning  a  bomb  crashed  through 
the  roof  of  the  breakfast  room,  killing  six  officers  on  the  spot  ;  and 
the  French  at  once  hung  out  the  white  flag;  but  when  the  English 
troops  marched  in  on  June  16,  at  seven  in  the  evening,  Le  Loutre 
had  fled  overland  through  the  forests  of  New  Brunswick  for  Quebec. 

There  scant  welcome  awaited 
the  renegade  priest.  The 
French  governors  had  been 
willing  to  use  him  as  their  tool 
at  a  price  ($800  a  year),  but 
when  the  tool  failed  of  its  pur- 
pose they  cast  him  aside.  Le 
Loutre  sailed  for  France,  but 
his  ship  was  captured  by  an 
English  cruiser  and  he  was  im- 
prisoned for  eight  years  on  the 
island  of  Jersey. 

Meanwhile,  how  was  fate 
dealing  with  the  Acadian  farm- 
ers ?  Ever  since  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht  they  had  been  afraid 
to  take  the  oath  of  unqualified 
loyalty  to  England,  lest  New 
France,  or  rather  Abbe  Le 
Loutre,  let  loose  the  hounds  of  Indian  massacre  on  their  peaceful 
settlements.  Besides,  had  not  the  priest  assured  them  year  in  and 
year  out  that  France  would  recover  Acadia  and  put  to  the  sword 
those  habitants  who  had  forsworn  France  ?  And  they  had  been 
equally  afraid  to  side  with  the  French,  for  in  case  of  failure  the 
burden  of  punishment  would  fall  on  them  alone.  For  almost  half 
a  century  they  had  been  known  as  Neutrals.  Of  their  population 
of  12,000,  3000  had  been  lured  away  to  Prince  Pklward  Island 
and  Cape  Breton.  When  Cornwallis  had  founded  Halifax  he  had 
intended  to  wait  only  till  the  English  were  firmly  established, 
when  he  would  demand  an  oath  of  unqualified  allegiance  from 


GENERAL   MONCKTON 


THE  ACADIANS 


233 


the  Acadians.  They,  on  their  part,  were  willing  to  take  the  oath 
with  one  proviso,  —  that  they  should  never  be  required  to  take 
up  arms  against  the  French  ;  or  they  would  have  been  willing  to 
leave  Acadia,  as  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  had  provided,  in  case  they 
did  not  take  the  oath  of  allegiance.  But  in  the  early  days  of 
English  possession  the  English  governors  were  not  willing  they 
should  leave.  If  the  Acadians  had  migrated,  it  would  simply  have 
strengthened  the  French  in  Cape  Breton  and  Prince  Edward 
Island  and  New  Brunswick.  Obstructions  had  been  created  that 
prevented"  the  supply  of  transports  to  move  the  Acadians.  The 
years  had  drifted  on,  and  a  new  generation  had  grown  up,  know- 
ing nothing  of  treaty  rights,  but  only  that  the  French  were 
threatening  them  on  one  side  if  they  did  not  rise  against  Eng- 
land, and  the  English  on  the  other  side  if  they  did  not  take  oath 
of  unqualified  allegiance.  Cornwallis  had  long  since  left  Halifax, 
and  Lawrence,  the  English  governor,  while  loyal  to  a  fault,  was,  like 
Braddock,  that  type  of  English  understrapper  who  has  wrought 
such  irreparable  injury  to  English  prestige  purely  from  lack  of 
sympathetic  insight  with  colonial  conditions.  For  years  before 
he  had  become  governor,  Lawrence's  clays  had  been  embittered  by 
the  intrigues  of  the  French  with  the  Acadian  farmers.  He  had 
been  in  Halifax  when  the  Abbe  Le  Loutre's  Indian  brigands 
had  raided  and  slain  as  many  as  thirty  workmen  at  a  time  near 
the  English  fort.  He  had  been  at  the  Isthmus  of  Chignecto  that 
fatal  morning  when  some  Indians  dressed  in  the  suits  of  French 
officers  waved  a  white  flag  and  lured  Captain  Howe  of  the  Eng- 
lish fort  across  stream,  where  they  shot  him  under  flag  of  truce 
in  cold  blood. 

These  are  not  excuses  for  what  Lawrence  did.  Nothing  can 
excuse  the  infamy  of  his  policy  toward  the  Acadians.  There  are 
few  blacker  crimes  in  the  history  of  the  world  ;  but  these  facts 
explain  how  a  man  of  Lawrence's  standing  could  assume  the 
responsibility  he  did.  In  addition,  Lawrence  was  a  bigoted  Prot- 
estant. He  not  only  hated  the  Acadians  because  they  were 
French;  he  hated  them  as  "a  colony  of  rattlesnakes"  because 
they  were  Catholics  ;  and  being  an  Englishman,  he  despised  them 


'A 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


because  they  were  colonials.  France  and  England  were  now  on 
the  verge  of  the  great  struggle  for  supremacy  in  America.  Eight- 
een French  frigates  had  come  to  Louisburg  and  three  thousand 
French  regulars  to  Quebec.  If  Lawrence  did  not  yet  know  that 
Braddock  had  been  defeated  on  July  9  at  Duquesne,  —  as  his 
friends  declare  in  his  defense,  —  it  is  a  strange  thing ;  for  by 
August  the  bloody  slaughter  of  the  Monongahela  was  known  every- 
where else  in  America 
from  Quebec  to  New 
Spain.  With  Lawrence 
a n d  M o nekton  an d 
Murray  and  Boscawen 
and  the  other  English 
generals  sent  to  conduct 
the  campaign  in  Acadia, 
the  question  was  what 
to  do  with  the  French 
habitants.  Let  two  facts 
be  distinctly  stated  here 
and  with  great  empha- 
sis :  first,  the  colonial 
officers,  like  Winslow 
from  Massachusetts, 
knew  absolutely  nothing 
of  the  English  officers' 
plans ;  the)'  were  not 
admitted  to  the  conferences  of  the  English  officers  and  were  sim- 
ply expected  to  obey  orders  ;  second,  the  English  government 
knew  absolutely  nothing  of  the  English  officers'  course  till  it  was 
too  late  for  remedy.  In  fact,  later  dispatches  of  that  year  inquire 
sharply  what  Lawrence  meant  by  an  obscure  threat  to  drive  the 
Acadians  out  of  the  country. 

Did  a  darker  and  more  sinister  motive  underlie  the  policy  of 
Lawrence  and  his  friends  ?  Poems,  novels,  histories  have  waged 
war  of  words  over  this.  Only  the  facts  can  be  stated.  Land  to 
the  extent  of  twenty  thousand  acres  each,  which  had  belonged  to 


GENERAL  JOHN  WINSLOW 


DEPORTATION   OF   FRENCH  235 

the  Acadians,  was  ultimately  deeded  to  Lawrence  and  his  friends. 
Charges  of  corruption  against  Lawrence  himself  were  lodged 
with  the  British  government  both  by  mail  and  by  personal  dele- 
gates from  Halifax.  Unfortunately  Lawrence  died  in  Halifax  in 
1 760  before  the  investigation  could  take  place  ;  and  whether 
true  or  false,  the  odium  of  the  charges  rests  upon  his  fame. 

What  he  did  with  the  Acadians  is  too  well  known  to  require 
telling.  In  secret  conclave  the  infamous  edict  was  pronounced. 
Quickly  messengers  were  sent  with  secret  dispatches  to  the 
officers  of  land  forces  and  ships  at  Annapolis,  at  Mines,  at  Chig- 
necto,  to  repair  to  the  towns  of  the  Acadians,  where,  upon  open- 
ing their  dispatches,  they  would  find  their  orders,  which  were  to  be 
kept  a  secret  among  the  officers.  The  colonial  officers,  on  reading 
the  orders,  were  simply  astounded.  "  It  is  the  most  grievous  affair 
that  ever  I  was  in,  in  my  life,  "  declared  Winslow.  The  edict 
was  that  every  man,  woman,  and  child  of  the  Acadians  should 
be  forcibly  deported,  in  Lawrence's  words,  "in  such  a  way  as  to 
prevent  the  reunion  of  the  colonists."  The  men  of  the  Acadian 
settlements  were  summoned  to  the  churches  to  hear  the  will  of 
the  King  of  England.  Once  inside,  doors  were  locked,  English 
soldiers  placed  on  guard  with  leveled  bayonet,  and  the  edict  read 
by  an  officer  standing  on  the  pulpit  stairs  or  on  a  table.  The 
Acadians  were  snared  like  rats  in  a  trap.  Outside  were  their  fami- 
lies, hostages  for  the  peaceable  conduct  of  the  men.  Inside  were 
the  brothers  and  husbands,  hostages  for  the  good  conduct  of  the 
families  outside.  Only  in  a  few  places  was  there  any  rioting,  and 
this  was  probably  caused  by  the  brutality  of  the  officers.  Murray 
and  Monckton  and  Lawrence  refer  to  their  prisoners  as  "  Popish 
recusants,"  "poor  wretches,"  "rascals  who  have  been  bad  subjects." 
While  the  Acadians  were  to  be  deported  so  the}-  could  never  re- 
unite as  a  colony,  it  was  intended  to  keep  the  families  together 
and  allow  them  to  take  on  board  what  money  and  household 
goods  they  possessed  ;  but  there  were  interminable  delays  for 
transports  and  supplies.  From  September  to  December  the  de- 
portation dragged  on,  and  when  the  Acadians,  patient  as  sheep  at 
the  shambles,  became  restless,  some  of  the  ships  were  sent  off 


236  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

with  the  men,  while  the  families  were  still  on  land.  In  places  the 
men  were  allowed  ashore  to  harvest  their  crops  and  care  for  their 
stock  ;  but  harvest  and  stock  fell  to  the  victors  as  burning  hay- 
ricks and  barns  nightly  lighted  to  flame  the  wooded  background 
and  placid  seas  of  the  fair  Acadian  land.  Before  winter  set  in, 
the  Acadians  had  been  scattered  from  New  England  to  Louisiana. 
A  few  people  in  the  Chignecto  region  had  escaped  to  the  woods 
of  New  Brunswick,  and  one  shipload  overpowered  its  officers 
and  fled  to  St.  John  River  ;  but  in  all,  six  thousand  six  hundred 
people  were  deported. 

It  is  the  blackest  crime  that  ever  took  place  under  the  British 
flag,  and  the  expulsion  was  only  the  beginning  of  the  sufferers' 
woes.  Some  people  found  their  way  to  Quebec,  but  Quebec  was 
destitute  and  in  the  throes  of  war.  The  wanderers  came  to  actual 
starvation.  The  others  wandered  homeless  in  Boston,  in  New 
York,  in  Philadelphia,  in  Louisiana.  After  the  peace  of  1763 
some  eight  hundred  gathered  together  in  Boston  and  began  the 
long  march  overland  through  the  forests  of  Maine  and  New  Bruns- 
wick, to  return  to  Acadia.  Singing  hymns,  dragging  their  baggage 
on  sleighs,  pausing  to  hunt  by  the  way,  these  sad  pilgrims  toiled 
more  than  one  thousand  miles  through  forest  and  swamp,  and  at 
the  end  of  two  years  found  themselves  back  in  Acadia.  But  they 
were  like  ghosts  of  the  dead  revisiting  scenes  of  childhood ! 
Their  lands  were  occupied  by  new  owners.  Of  their  herds 
naught  remained  but  the  bleaching  bone  heaps  where  the 
lowing  cattle  had  huddled  in  winter  storms.  New  faces  filled 
their  old  houses.  Strange  children  rambled  beneath  the  little 
dormer  windows  of  the  Acadian  cottages,  and  the  voices  of  the 
boys  at  play  in  the  apple  orchards  shouted  in  an  alien  tongue. 
The  very  names  of  the  places  had  vanished.  Beausejour  was  now 
Cumberland.  Beaubassin  had  become  Amherst.  Cobequid  was 
now  Truro.  Grand  Pre  was  now  known  as  Horton.  The  heart- 
broken people  hurried  on  like  ghosts  to  the  unoccupied  lands  of 
St.  Mary's  Bay,— St.  Mary's  Bay,  where  long  ago  Priest  Aubry 
had  been  lost.  Here  they  settled,  to  hew  out  for  themselves  a 
second  home  in  the  wilderness. 


AT   LAKE   CHAMPLAIX  237 

It  will  be  recalled  that  Braddock's  plans  had  been  captured 
by  the  French,  and  those  plans  told  Baron  Dieskau,  who  had 
come  out  to  command  the  French  troops,  that  the  English  under 
William  Johnson,  a  great  leader  of  the  Iroquois,  inured  to  bush 
life  like  an  Indian,  were  to  attack  the  French  fort  at  Crown  Point 
on  Lake  Cham  plain.  Now  observe  :  on  the  Ohio,  Braddock  the 
regular  had  been  defeated;  in  Acadia,  Lawrence  and  Monckton 
and  Murray,  the  English  generals,  had  brought  infamy  across  Eng- 
land's renown  by  their  failure  to  understand  colonial  conditions. 


V     .  ;  J  A  CAME 


ILES  ADJACENTES 


AJ 


MAP  OF  ACADIA  AND  THE  ADJACENT  ISLANDS,  1755 

At  Lake  Champlain  the  conditions  are  reversed.  Johnson,  the 
English  leader,  is,  from  long  residence  in  America,  almost  a  colo- 
nial. Dieskau,  the  commander  of  the  French,  is  a  veteran  of 
Saxon  wars,  but  knows  nothing  of  bushfighting.  What  happens  ? 
Dieskau  had  intended  to  attack  the  English  at  Oswego,  but  the 
plans  for  Johnson  on  Lake  Champlain  brought  the  commander  of 
the  French  rushing  up  the  Richelieu  River  with  three  thousand 
soldiers,  part  regulars,  part  Canadians.  Crown  Point  —  called  Fort 
Frederick  by  the  French  —  was  reached  in  August.  No  English 
are  here,  but  scouts  bring  word  that  Johnson  has  built  a  fort  on 
the  south  end  of  Lake  George,  and,  leaving  only  five  hundred 
men  to  garrison  it,  is  moving  up  the  lake  with  his  main  troops. 


238 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 


Fired  by  the  French  victories  over  Braddock,  Dieskau  planned 
to  capture  the  English  fort  and  ambush  Johnson  on  the  march. 
Look  at  the  map  !  The  south  end  of  Lake  Champlain  lies  parallel 
with  the  north  end  of  Lake  George.  The  French  can  advance 
on  the  English  one  of  two  ways, — portage  over  to  Lake  George 
and  canoe  up  the  lake  to  Johnson's  fort,  or  ascend  the  marsh  to 
the  south  of  Lake  Champlain,  then  cross  through  the  woods  to 

Johnson's  fort.  Dieskau 
chose  the  latter  trail. 
Leaving  half  his  men  to 
guard  the  baggage, 
Dieskau  bade  fifteen 
hundred  picked  men 
follow  him  on  swiftest 
march  with  provisions 
in  haversack  for  only 
eight  days.  September 
8,  10  a.m.,  the  marchers 
advance  through  the 
woods  on  Johnson's  fort, 
when  suddenly  they 
learn  that  their  scout  has 
lied,  — Johnson  himself 
is  still  at  the  fort.  In- 
stead of  five  hundred  are 
four  thousand  English. 
Advancing  along  the 
trail  V-shape,  regulars  in 
the  middle,  Canadians  and  Indians  on  each  side,  the  French  come 
on  a  company  of  five  hundred  English  wagoners.  In  the  wild 
melee  of  shouts  the  English  retreat  in  a  rabble.  "  Pursue ! 
March  !  hire  !  Force  the  place  !  "  yells  Dieskau,  dashing  forward 
sword  in  hand,  thinking  to  follow  so  closely  on  the  heels  of  the 
rabble  that  he  can  enter  the  English  fort  before  the  enemy  know; 
but  his  Indians  have  forsaken  him,  and  Johnson's  scouts  have 
forewarned  the  approach  of  the  French,    Instead  of  ambushing 


SIR  WILLIAM    JOHNSON 


DIESKAU   DEFEATED 


■39 


THE   REGION  OF 


the  English,  Dieskau  finds  his  own  army  ambushed.  He  had 
sneered  at  the  un-uniformed  plow-boys  of  the  English.  "The 
more  there  are,  the  more  we  shall  kill,"  he  had  boasted  ;  but 
now  he  discovers  that  the  rude  bushwhackers,  "who  fought  like 
boys  in  the  morning,  at  noon  fought  like  men,  and  by  afternoon 
fought  like  devils." 
Their  sharpshooters 
kept  up  a  crash  of  fire 
to  the  fore,  and  fifteen 
hundred  doubled  on  the 
rear  of  his  army,  "  fold- 
ing us  up,"  he  reported, 
"like  a  pack  of  cards." 
Dieskau  fell,  shot  in  the 
leg  and  in  the  knee,  and 
a  bullet  struck  the  cart- 
ridge box  of  the  servant 
who  was  washing  out 
the  wounds. 

"  Lay  my  telescope 
and  coat  by  me,  and  go ! " 
ordered  Dieskau.  "This 
is  as  good  a  deathbed  as 
any  place.  Go ! "  he  thun- 
dered, seeing  his  second 
officer  hesitate.  "  Don't 
you  see  you  are  needed  ? 
Go  and  sound  a  retreat." 

A    third    shot    pene- 
trated the  wounded  com- 
mander's bladder.    Lying  alone,  propped  against  a  tree,  he  heard 
the  drums  rolling  a  retreat,  when  one  of  the  enemy  jumped  from 
the  woods  with  pointed  pistol. 

"  Scoundrel !"  roared  the  dauntless  Dieskau;  "dare  to  shoot 
a  man  weltering  in  his  blood."  The  fellow  proved  to  be  a  French- 
man who  had  long  ago  deserted  to  the  English,  and  he  muttered 


X*         ) 


5 


CONTEMPORARY   MAP   OF  THE    REGION   OF 
LAKE   GEORGE 


240  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OE  THE   NORTH 

out  some  excuse  about  shooting  the  devil  before  the  devil  shot 
him  ;  but  when  he  found  out  who  Dieskau  was,  he  had  him  carried 
carefully  to  Johnson's  tent,  where  every  courtesy  was  bestowed 
upon  the  wounded  commander.    Johnson  himself  lay  wounded. 

All  that  night  Iroquois  kept  breaking  past  the  guard  into 
the  tent. 

"  What  do  they  want  ?  "  asked  Dieskau  feebly. 

"To  skin  you  and  eat  you,"  returned  Johnson  laconically. 

Whose  was  the  victory  ?  The  losses  had  been  about  even,  — 
two  hundred  and  fifty  on  each  side.  Johnson  had  failed  to 
advance  to  Crown  Point,  but  Dieskau  had  failed  to  dislodge 
Johnson.  If  Dieskau  had  not  been  captured,  it  is  a  question  if 
either  side  would  have  considered  the  fight  a  victory.  As  it  was, 
New  France  was  plunged  in  grief  ;  joy  bells  rang  in  New  Eng- 
land. Johnson  was  given  a  baronetcy  and  ,£5000  for  his  vic- 
tory. He  had  named  the  lake  south  of  Lake  Champlain  after 
the  English  King,  Lake  George. 

So  closed  the  first  act  in  the  tragic  struggle  for  supremacy  in 
America. 


CHAPTER  XII 

FROM  1756  TO  1763 

How  stand  both  sides  at  the  opening  of  the  year  1756,  on  the 
verge  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  —  the  struggle  for  a  continent  ? 

There  has  been  open  war  for  more  than  a  year,  but  war  is  not 
formally  declared  till  May  18,  1756. 

Take  Acadia  first. 

The  French  have  been  expelled.  The  infamous  Le  Loutre  is 
still  in  prison  in  England,  and  when  he  is  released,  in  1763,  he 
toils  till  his  death,  in  1773,  trying  to  settle  the  Acadian  refugees 
on  some  of  the  French  islands  of  the  English  Channel.  The  smil- 
ing farms  of  Grand  Pre  and  Port  Royal  lie  a  howling  waste. 
Only  a  small  English  garrison  holds  Annapolis,  where  long  ago 
Marc  L'Escarbot  and  Champlain  held  happy  revel  ;  and  the  seat 
of  government  has  been  transferred  to  Halifax,  now  a  settlement 
and  fort  of  some  five  thousand  people.  So  much  for  the  English. 
Across  a  narrow  arm  of  the  sea  is  Isle  Royal  or  Cape  Breton, 
where  the  French  are  intrenched  as  at  a  second  Gibraltar  in  the 
fortress  of  Louisburg.  Since  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  re- 
stored the  fort  to  the  French,  millions  have  been  spent  strength- 
ening its  walls,  adding  to  the  armaments ;  but  Intendant  Bigot 
has  had  charge  of  the  funds,  and  Intendant  Bigot  has  a  sponge- 
like quality  of  absorbing  all  funds  that  flow  through  his  hands. 
Cannon  have  been  added,  but  there  are  not  enough  balls  to  go 
round.  The  walls  have  been  repaired,  but  with  false  filling  (sand 
in  place  of  mortar),  so  that  the  first  shatter  of  artillery  will  send 
them  clattering  down  in  wet  plaster. 

Take  the  Ohio  next. 

"  Beautiful  River  "  is  the  highway  between  New  France  and 
Louisiana.  By  Braddock's  defeat  the  English  have  been  driven 
out  to  a  man.    Matters  are  a  thousandfold  worse  than  before,  for 

241 


242  CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

the  savage  allies  of  the  French  now  swarm  down  the  bush  road 
cut  by  Braddock's  army  and  carry  bloody  havoc  to  all  the  fron- 
tier settlements  of  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia.  How  many  pio- 
neers perished  in  this  border  war  will  never  be  known.  It  is  a 
tale  by  itself,  and  its  story  is  not  part  of  Canada's  history. 
George  Washington  was  the  officer  in  charge  of  a  thousand  bush- 
fighters  to  guard  this  frontier. 

Take  the  valley  of  Lake  Champlain. 

This  is  the  highway  of  approach  to  Montreal  north,  to  Albany 
south.  Johnson  had  defeated  Dieskau  here,  but  neither  side  was 
strong  enough  to  advance  from  the  scene  of  battle  into  the 
territory  of  the  enemy.  The  English  take  possession  of  Lake 
George  and  intrench  themselves  at  the  south  end  in  Fort 
William  Henry.  Sir  William  Johnson  strings  a  line  of  forts  up 
the  Mohawk  River  towards  Oswego  on  Lake  Ontario,  and  he 
keeps  his  forest  rangers,  under  the  famous  scout  Major  Robert 
Rogers,  scouring  the  forest  and  mountain  trails  of  Lake  Cham- 
plain  for  French  marauder  and  news  of  what  the  French  are 
doing.  Rogers'  Rangers,  too,  are  a  story  by  themselves,  but  a 
story  which  does  not  concern  Canada.  Skating  and  snowshoe- 
ing  by  winter,  canoeing  by  night  in  summer,  Rogers  passed  and 
repassed  the  enemy's  lines  times  without  number,  as  if  his  life 
were  charmed,  though  once  his  wrist  was  shot  when  he  had 
nothing  to  stanch  the  blood  but  the  ribbon  tying  his  wig,  and 
once  he  stumbled  back  exhausted  to  Fort  William  Henry,  to  lie 
raging  with  smallpox  for  the  winter.  Among  the  forest  rangers 
of  New  Hampshire  and  New  York,  Major  Robert  Rogers  was 
without  a  peer.  No  danger  was  too  great,  no  feat  too  daring,  for 
his  band  of  scouts.  The  English  have  established  Fort  William 
Henry  at  the  south  end  of  Lake  George.  The  French  check- 
mate the  move  by  strengthening  Crown  Point  on  Lake  Cham- 
plain  and  moving  a  pace  farther  south  into  English  territory,  —  to 
Carillon,  where  the  waters  of  Lake  George  pour  into  Champlain. 
Here  on  a  high  angle  between  the  river  and  the  lake,  command- 
ing all  travel  north  and  south,  the  French  build  Carillon  or  Fort 
Ticonderoga. 


BIGOT  AT  QUEBEC  243 

As  for  the  Great  Northwest,  New  France  with  her  string  of 
posts  —  Frontenac,  Niagara,  Detroit,  Michilimackinac,  Kaminis- 
tiquia  (Fort  William),  Fort  Rogue  (Winnipeg),  Portage  la  Prairie 
—  stretches  clear  across  to  the  foothills  of  the  Rockies.  The 
English  fur  traders  of  Hudson  Bay  have,  in  1754,  sent  Anthony 
Hendry  up  the  Saskatchewan,  but  when  Hendry  comes  back 
with  word  of  equestrian  Indians  —  the  Blackfeet  on  horseback  — 
and  treeless  plains,  the  English  set  him  down  as  a  lying  impostor. 
Indians  on  horseback  !  They  had  never  seen  Indians  but  in  canoes 
and  on  snowshoes  !  Hendry  was  dismissed  as  unreliable,  and 
no  Englishman  went  up  the  Saskatchewan  for  another  ten  years. 

If  the  disasters  of  1755  did  nothing  more,  the}-  at  last  stirred 
the  home  governments  to  action.  Earl  Loudon  is  sent  out  in 
1756  to  command  the  English,  and  to  New  France  in  May  comes 
Louis  Joseph,  Marquis  de  Montcalm,  age  forty-four,  soldier, 
scholar,  country  gentleman,  with  a  staff  composed  of  Chevalier 
de  Levis,  Bourlamaque,  and  one  Bougainville,  to  become  famous 
as  a  navigator. 

Though  New  France  consists  of  a  good  three  quarters  of 
America,  things  are  in  evil  plight  that  causes  Montcalm  many 
sleepless  nights.  Vaudreuil,  the  French  governor,  descendant  of 
that  Vaudreuil  who  long  ago  set  the  curse  of  Indian  warfare 
on  the  borders  of  New  England,  had  expected  to  be  appointed 
chief  commander  of  the  troops  and  jealously  resents  Montcalm's 
coming.  With  the  Governor  is  leagued  Intendant  Bigot,  come  up 
from  Louisburg.  Bigot  is  a  man  of  sixty,  of  noble  birth,  a  favor- 
ite of  the  butterfly  woman  who  rules  the  King  of  France, — 
the  Pompadour,  —  and  he  has  come  to  New  France  to  mend  his 
fortunes.  How  he  planned  to  do  it  one  may  guess  from  his 
career  at  Louisburg;  but  Quebec  offered  better  field,  and  it 
was  to  Bigot's  interest  to  ply  Montcalm  and  Vaudreuil  with  such 
tittle-tattle  of  enmity  as  would  foment  jealousy,  keep  their  atten- 
tion on  each  other,  and  their  eyes  off  his  own  doings.  As  he  had 
done  at  Louisburg,  so  he  now  did  at  Quebec.  The  King  was 
requisitioned  for  enormous  sums  to  strengthen  the  fort.    Bigot's 


244  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

ring  of  friends  acted  as  contractors.  The  outlay  was  enormous, 
the  results  trifling.  "I  think,"  complained  the  King,  "that 
Quebec  must  be  fortified  in  gold,  it  has  cost  so  much."  It  was 
time  of  war.  Enormous  sums  were  to  be  expended  for  presents 
to  keep  the  Indians  loyal ;  and  the  King  complains  that  he  can- 
not understand  how  baubles  of  beads  and  powderhorns  cost  so 
much,  or  how  the  western  tribes  seem  to  become  more  and  more 
numerous,  or  how  the  French  officers,  who  distribute  the  pres- 
ents, become  millionaires  in  a  few  years.  A  friend  of  Bigot's 
handled  these  funds.  There  are  meat  contracts  for  the  army. 
A  worthless,  lowbred  scamp  is  named  commissary  general.  He 
handles  these  contracts,  and  he,  too,  swiftly  graduates  into  the 
millionaire  class,  is  hail-fellow  well  met  with  Bigot,  drinks  deep 
at  the  Intendant's  table,  and  gambles  away  as  much  as  $40,000 
in  a  single  night.  It  is  time  of  war,  and  it  is  time  of  famine  too ; 
for  the  crops  have  failed.  Every  inhabitant  between  the  ages  of 
fifteen  and  fifty  has  been  drafted  into  the  army.  Not  counting 
Indians,  there  is  an  army  of  fifteen  to  twenty  thousand  to  be  fed  ; 
so  Bigot  compels  the  habitants  to  sell  him  provisions  at  a  low 
price.  These  provisions  he  resells  to  the  King  for  the  army  and 
to  the  citizens  at  famine  prices.  The  King's  warehouse  down 
by  the  Intendant's  palace  becomes  known  as  La  Friponne,  — 
The  Cheat. 

And  though  the  country  is  on  verge  of  ruin,  though  poor  peo- 
ple of  the  three  towns  are  rioting  in  the  streets  for  food,  old 
women  cursing  the  little  wizened  Intendant  with  his  pimpled  face 
as  he  rolls  past  resplendent  in  carriage  with  horses  whose  har- 
ness is  a  blaze  of  silver,  the  troops  threatening  to  mutiny  because 
they  are  compelled  to  use  horse  flesh,  —  though  New  France  is 
hovering  over  a  volcano  of  disaster,  they  dance  to  their  death, 
thoughtless  as  butterflies,  gay  as  children,  these  manikin  imita- 
tors of  the  French  court,  who  are  ruining  New  France  that  they 
may  copy  the  vices  of  an  Old  World  playing  at  kingcraft.  The 
regular  troops  are  uniformed  in  white  with  facings  of  blue  and 
red  and  gold  and  violet,  three-cornered  hat,  and  leather  leggings 
to  knee.    What  with  chapel  bells  ringing  and  ringing,  and  bugle 


NEW  FRANCE  ON  VERGE  OF  RUIN 


245 


call  and  counter  call  echoing  back  from  Cape  Diamond  ;  what 
with  Monsieur  Bigot's  prancing  horses  and  Madame  Pean's  flashy 
carriage,  —  Madame  Pean  of  whom  Bigot  is  so  enamored  he  lias 
sent  her  husband  to  some  far  western  post  and  passes  each  even- 
ing at  her  gay  receptions,  —  what  with  the  grounding  of  the 
sentry's  arms  and  the  parade  of  troops,  Quebec  is  a  gay  place 
these  years  of  black  ruin,  and  the  gossips  have  all  they  can  do  to 
keep  track  of  the  amours  and  the  duels  and  the  high  personages 
cultivating  Madame  Pean ;  for  cultivated  she  must  be  by  all  who 


RUINS  OF  CHATEAU   BIGOT 


covet  place  or  power.  A  word  from  Madame  Pean  to  Bigot 
is  of  more  value  than  a  bribe.  Even  Montcalm  and  De  Levis 
attend  her  revels. 

Twenty  people  sup  with  Monsieur  Bigot  each  night,  either  at 
the  Intendant's  palace  down  by  Charles  River,  or  nine  miles  out 
towards  Beauport,  where  he  has  built  himself  the  Forest  Hermit- 
age, now  known  as  Chateau  Bigot,  —  a  magnificent  country 
manor  house  of  red  brick,  hidden  away  among  the  hills  with  the 
gay  shrubberies  of  French  gardens  set  down  in  an  American  wil- 
derness. Supper  over  by  seven,  the  guests  sit  down  to  play,  and 
the  amount  a  man  may  gamble  is  his  social  barometer,  whether 


246  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

he  lose  or  win,  cheat  or  steal.  If  dancing  follows  gambling",  the 
rout  will  not  disperse  till  seven  in  the  morning.  What  time  is  left 
of  the  twenty-four  hours  in  a  day  will  be  devoted  to  public  affairs. 

Montcalm's  salary  is  only  25,000  francs,  or  $5000.  To  main- 
tain the  dignity  of  the  King,  the  commander  in  chief  must  keep 
the  pace,  and  he  too  gives  weekly  suppers,  with  places  set  for 
fort\'  people,  "whom  I  don't  know,"  he  writes  dejectedly  to  his 
wife,  "and  don't  want  to  know  ;  and  wish  that  I  might  spend  the 
evenings  quietly  in  my  own  chamber."  To  Montcalm,  who  was 
of  noble  birth  with  no  shamming,  this  lowbred  pretense  and  play 
at  courtcraft  became  a  bore  ;  to  his  staff  of  officers,  a  source  of 
continual  amusement  ;  but  De  Levis  presently  falls  victim  to  a 
pair  of  fine  eyes  possessed  by  the  wife  of  another  man. 

War  filled  the  summers,  but  the  winters  were  given  up  to 
social  life  ;  and  of  all  midwinter  social  gayeties  the  most  impor- 
tant was  the  official  visit  of  the  Governor  and  the  Intendant  to 
Montreal.  By  this  time  a  good  road  had  been  cut  from  Quebec 
to  Montreal  along  the  north  shore,  and  the  sleighs  usually  set 
out  in  January  or  February.  Bigot  added  to  the  occasion  all  the 
prestige  of  a  social  rout.  All  the  grand  dames  and  cavaliers  of 
Quebec  were  invited.  Baggage  was  sent  on  ahead  with  servants 
to  break  the  way,  find  quarters  for  the  night,  and  prepare  meals. 
After  a  dinner  at  the  Intendant's  palace  the  sleighs  set  out,  two 
horses  to  each,  driven  tandem  because  the  sleigh  road  was  too 
narrow  for  a  team.  Each  sleigh  held  only  two  occupants,  and  to 
the  damage  clone  by  fair  eyes  was  added  the  glow  of  exhilaration 
from  driving  behind  spirited  horses  in  frosty  air  with  the  bells  of 
a  hundred  carryalls  ringing  across  the  snow.  At  seven  was  pause 
for  supper.  High  play  followed  till  ten.  Then  early  to  bed  and 
earl}-  to  rise  and  on  the  road  again  by  seven  in  the  morning !  In 
Montreal  was  one  continual  round  of  dinners  and  dances.  Be- 
tween times,  appointments  were  made  to  the  military  posts  and 
trading  stations  of  the  Up-Country.  He  who  wanted  a  good  post 
must  pay  his  court  to  Madame  Pean.  No  wonder  Montcalm 
breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when  Lent  put  a  stop  to  the  gayeties 
and  he  could  quietly  pass  his  evenings  with  the  Sulpician  priests. 


PARLIAMENT    BUILDINGS,   OTTAWA 


QUEBEC,   CHATEAU    FRONTENAC    AND     THE   CITADEL 


BIGOT'S  VAMPIRES  SUCK  COUNTRY'S  LIFEBLOOD     247 

To  break  from  Bigot's  ring  during  the  war  was  impossible.  Crea- 
tures of  his  choosing  filled  the  army,  handled  the  supplies,  con- 
trolled the  Indians  ;  and  when  the  King's  reproof  became  too 
sharp,  Bigot  simply  threatened  to  resign,  which  wrought  conster- 
nation, for  no  man  of  ability  would  attempt  to  unwind  the  tangle 
of  Bigot's  dishonesty  during  a  critical  war.  Montcalm  wrote 
home  complaints  in  cipher.  The  French  government  bided  its 
time,  and  Bigot  tightened  his  vampire  suckers  on  the  lifeblood 
of  the  dying  nation.  The  whole  era  is  a  theme  for  the  allegory 
of  artist  or  poet. 

Montcalm  had  arrived  in  May  of  1756.  By  midsummer  he 
was  leading  three  thousand  French  artillerymen  across  Lake 
Ontario  from  Fort  Frontenac  (Kingston),  to  attack  the  Eng- 
lish post  on  the  south  side,  Oswego.  Inside  the  fort  walls  were 
seven  hundred  raw  English  provincials,  ill  of  scurvy  from  lack  of 
food.  The  result  need  scarcely  be  told.  Seven  hundred  ill  men 
behind  wooden  walls  had  no  chance  against  three  thousand  sol- 
diers in  health  with  heavy  artillery.  To  take  the  English  by  sur- 
prise, Montcalm  had  crossed  the  lake  on  August  4  by  night. 
Two  days  later  all  the  transport  ships  had  landed  the  troops  and 
the  cannon  had  actually  been  mounted  before  the  English  knew  of 
the  enemy's  presence.  On  the  east  side  of  the  river  was  Fort 
Ontario,  a  barricade  of  logs  built  in  the  shape  of  a  star,  hous- 
ing an  outguard  of  three  hundred  and  seventy  men.  On  discov- 
ering the  French,  the  sentry  spiked  their  cannon,  threw  their 
powder  in  the  river,  and  retired  at  midnight  inside  Oswego's 
walls.  Working  like  beavers,  Montcalm's  men  dragged  twenty 
cannon  to  a  hill  commanding  the  fort,  known  as  "  Fort  Rascal  " 
because  the  outfort  there  was  useless  to  the  English.  Before 
Montcalm's  cannonade  Oswego's  walls,  plastered  with  clay  and 
rubble,  fell  like  the  staves  of  a  dry  barrel.  The  English  sharp- 
shooters then  hid  behind  pork  barrels  placed  in  three  tiers  filled 
with  sand  ;  but  Colonel  Mercer,  their  officer,  was  literally  cut  in 
two  by  a  cannon  shot,  and  the  women,  cooped  up  inside  the  bar- 
racks, begged  the  officers  to  avoid  Indian  massacre  by  surrender. 


248  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

A  white  flag  was  waved.  Including  women,  something  under  a 
thousand  English  surrendered  themselves  prisoners  to  Montcalm. 
The  Indians  fell  at  once  to  mad  plunder.  Spite  of  the  terms  of 
honorable  surrender,  the  English  were  stripped  of  everything, 
and  only  Montcalm's  promise  of  $10,000  worth  of  presents  to 
the  savages  prevented  butchery.  The  victors  decamped  to  Mont- 
real, well  pleased  with  the  campaign  of  1756.  It  need  not  be  told 
that  there  were  constant  raids  and  counter  raids  along  the  frontier 
during  the  entire  year. 

Loudon,  the  English  commander,  did  not  arrive  in  New  York 
till  well  on  in  midsummer  of  1756,  and  he  found  far  different  ma- 
terial from  the  trained  bushfighters  in  the  hands  of  Montcalm. 
The  English  soldiers  were  raw  provincial  recruits,  dressed,  at 
best,  in  buckskin,  but  for  the  most  part  in  the  rough  homespun 
which  they  had  worn  when  they  had  left  plow  and  carpenter's 
bench  and  fishing  boat.  While  Montcalm  was  capturing  Oswego, 
Loudon  was  licking  his  rough  recuits  into  shape,  "  making  men 
out  of  mud  "  for  the  campaign  of  1757.  Indeed,  it  was  said  of 
Loudon,  and  the  saying  stuck  to  him  as  characteristic  of  his 
campaign,  that  he  resembled  the  wooden  horse  figure  of  a 
tavern  sign,  —  always  on  horseback  but  never  rode  forward. 
Instead  of  striking  at  Lake  Champlain  or  on  the  Ohio,  where 
the  French  were  aggressors,  Loudon  planned  to  repeat  the  bril- 
liant capture  of  Louisburg.  July  of  1857  found  him  at  Halifax 
planting  vegetable  gardens  to  prevent  scurvy, —  "the  cabbage 
campaign"  it  was  derisively  called, —  and  waiting  for  Gorham's 
rangers  to  reconnoiter  Louisburg.  Gorham's  scouts  brought  back 
word  that  the  French  admiral  had  come  in  with  twenty-four  men- 
of-war  and  seven  thousand  men.  To  overpower  such  strength 
meant  a  prolonged  siege.  It  was  already  August.  Loudon  sailed 
back  to  New  York  without  firing  a  gun,  while  the  English  fleet, 
trying  to  reconnoiter  Louisburg,  suffered  terrible  shipwreck. 

Montcalm  was  not  the  enemy  to  let  the  chance  of  Loudon's 
absence  from  the  scene  of  action  pass  unimproved.  While  Loudon 
is  pottering   at    Halifax,   Montcalm   marshals  his   troops  to  the 


SCENE  ON   LAKE 


249 


number  of  eight  thousand,  including  one  thousand  Indians  at 
Carillon  or  Ticonderoga,  where  Lake  George  empties  into  Lake 
Champlain.  Portaging  two  hundred  and  fifty  flatboats  with  as 
many  birch  canoes  up  the  river,  the  French  invade  the  mountain 
wilderness  of  Lake  George.  Towards  the  end  of  July,  Levis  leads 
part  of  the  troops  by  land  up  the  west  shore  towards  the  English 
post  of  Fort  William  Henry.  Montcalm  advances  on  the  lake  with 
the  flatboats  and  canoes, 
and  the  rafts  with  the  heavy 
artillery.  Each  night  Levis' 
troops  kindle  their  signal 
fires  on  the  mountain  slope, 
and  each  night  Montcalm 
from  the  lake  signals  back 
with  torches.  It  needs 
artist's  brush  to  paint  the 
picture  :  the  forested  moun- 
tains green  and  lonely  and 
silent  in  the  shimmering 
sunlight  of  the  summer  sky; 
the  lake  gold  as  molten 
metal  in  the  fire  of  the  set- 
ting sun;  the  soldiers  in 
their  gay  uniforms  of  white 
and  blue,  hoisting  tent 
cloths  on  oar  sweeps  for 
sails  as  a  breeze  dimples 
the  waters  ;  the  French  voyageurs  clad  in  beaded  buckskin  chant- 
ing some  ditty  of  Old-World  fame  to  the  rhythmic  dip  of  the 
Indian  paddles  ;  the  Indians  naked,  painted  for  war,  with  a  glit- 
ter in  their  eyes  of  a  sinister  intent  which  they  have  no  mind 
to  tell  Montcalm  ;  and  then,  at  the  south  of  Lake  George,  nes- 
tling between  the  hills  and  the  water,  the  little  palisaded  fort,  — 
Fort  William  Henry,  —  with  gates  fast  shut  and  two  thousand 
bushfighters  behind  the  walls,  weak  from  an  epidemic  of  smallpox, 
and,  as  usual,  so  short  of  provisions  that  siege  means  starvation. 


THE    EARL    OF    LOUDON 


250  CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Twenty  miles  southeastward  is  another  English  fort,  —  Fort 
Edward,  —  where  General  Webb  with  sixteen  hundred  men  is 
keeping  the  road  barred  against  advance  to  Albany.  Soon  as 
scouts  bring  word  to  Fort  William  Henry  of  the  advancing  French, 
Lieutenant  Monro  sends  frantic  appeal  to  Webb  for  more  men  ; 
but  Webb  has  already  sent  all  the  men  he  can  spare.  If  he  leaves 
Fort  Edward,  the  French  by  a  flank  movement  through  the  woods 
can  march  on  Albany,  so  Monro  unplugs  his  seventeen  cannon, 
locks  his  gates,  and  bides  his  fate. 

Montcalm  follows  the  same  tactics  as  at  Oswego,  —  brings 
heavy  artillery  against  slab  walls.  For  the  first  week  of  August, 
eight  hundred  of  his  men  are  digging  trenches  by  night  to  avoid 
giving  target  for  the  fiery  bombs  whizzing  through  the  dark 
from  Monro's  cannon.  By  day  they  lie  hidden  in  the  woods  with 
a  cordon  of  sharpshooters  encircling  the  fort,  Montcalm  encamped 
on  the  west  to  prevent  help  from  Sir  William  Johnson  up  the 
Mohawk,  Levis  on  the  southeast  to  cut  off  aid  from  Webb. 
Monro  sends  yet  one  last  appeal  for  help  :  two  thousand  men 
against  eight  thousand,  —  the  odds  are  eloquent  of  his  need  ! 
Montcalm's  scouts  let  the  messenger  pass  through  the  lines  as  if 
unseen,  but  they  make  a  point  of  catching  the  return  messenger 
and  holding  Webb's  answer  that  he  cannot  come,  till  their  cannon 
have  torn  great  wounds  in  the  fort  walls.  Then  Bougainville 
blindfold  carries  Webb's  answer  to  Monro  and  demands  the  sur- 
render of  the  fort.  Monro  still  has  a  little  ammunition,  still  hopes 
against  hope  that  Johnson  or  Webb  or  Loudon  will  come  to  the 
rescue,  and  he  keeps  his  big  guns  singing  over  the  heads  of  the 
French  in  their  trenches  till  all  the  cannon  have  burst  but  seven, 
and  there  are  not  ten  rounds  of  shells  left.  Then  Colonel  Young, 
with  a  foot  shot  off,  rides  out  on  horseback  waving  a  white  flag. 
Three  hundred  English  have  been  killed,  as  man}'  again  are 
wounded  or  ill  of  smallpox,  and  to  the  remaining  garrison  of  six- 
teen hundred  Montcalm  promises  safe  conduct  to  General  Webb 
at  Fort  Edward.  Then  the  English  march  out.  That  night  — 
August  9 — the  vanquished  English  camp  with  Montcalm's  forces. 
The  Indians,  meanwhile,  ramping  through  the  fort  for  plunder, 


MASSACRE  AT  FORT  WILLIAM   HENRY  251 

have  maddened  themselves  with  traders'  rum  !  Before  daybreak 
they  have  butchered  all  the  wounded  lying  in  the  hospital  and  cut 
to  pieces  the  men  ill  of  smallpox, — a  crime  that  brought  its  own 
punishment  in  contagion.  Next  morning,  when  the  French  guard 
tried  to  conduct  the  disarmed  English  along  the  trail  to  Fort 
Edward,  the  Indians  snatched  at  the  clothing,  the  haversacks, 
the  tent  kit  of  the  marchers.  With  their  swords  the  French  beat 
back  the  drunken  horde.  In  answer,  the  war  hatchets  were  waved 
over  the  heads  of  the  cowering  women.  The  march  became  a 
panic  ;  the  panic,  a  massacre  ;  and  for  twenty-four  hours  such 
bedlam  raged  as  might  have  put  fiends  to  shame.  The  frenzied 
Indians  would  listen  to  no  argument  but  blows  ;  and  when  the 
English  prisoners  appealed  to  the  French  for  protection,  the 
French  dared  not  offend  their  savage  allies  by  fighting  to  protect 
the  English  victims.  "Take  to  the  woods,"  they  warned  the 
men,  and  the  women  were  quickly  huddled  back  to  shelter  of  the 
fort.  Of  the  men,  sixty  were  butchered  on  the  spot  and  some 
seven  hundred  captured  to  be  held  for  ransom.  The  remnant  of 
the  English  soldiers,  along  with  the  women,  were  held  till  the 
Indian  frenzy  had  spent  itself,  then  sent  to  Fort  Edward. 
August  16  a  torch  was  put  to  the  combustibles  of  the  fort  ruins, 
and  as  the  French  boats  glided  out  on  Lake  George  for  the  St. 
Lawrence,  explosion  after  explosion,  flame  leaping  above  flame, 
proclaimed  that  of  Fort  William  Henry  there  would  remain  naught 
but  ashes  and  charred  ruins  and  the  skeletons  of  the  dead.  So 
closed  the  campaign  of  1857.  For  three  years  hand  running 
England  had  suffered  defeat. 

The  spring  of  1758  witnessed  a  change.  The  change  was  the 
rise  to  power  of  a  man  who  mastered  circumstances  instead  of 
allowing  them  to  master  him.  Such  men  are  the  milestones  of 
human  progress,  whether  heroes,  or  quiet  toilers  unknown  to  the 
world.  The  man  was  Pitt,  the  English  statesman.  Instead  of  a 
weak  ministry  fighting  the  machinations  of  France,  it  was  now 
Pitt  versus  Pompadour,  the  English  patriot  against  the  light 
woman  who  ruled  the  councils  of  France. 


252  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

From  fighting  weakly  on  the  defensive,  England  sprang  into 
the  position  of  aggressor  all  along  the  line.  The  French  were  to 
be  attacked  at  all  points  simultaneously,  at  Louisburg  on  the 
east,  at  Ticonderoga  or  Carillon  on  Lake  Champlain,  at  Duquesne 
on  the  Ohio,  at  Frontenac  on  Lake  Ontario,  and  finally  at  Que- 
bec itself.  Loudon  is  recalled  as  commander  in  chief.  Abercrom- 
bie  succeeds  to  the  position,  with  the  brilliant  young  soldier,  Lord 
Howe,  as  right-hand  man  ;  but  Pitt  takes  good  care  that  there 
shall  be  good  chiefs  and  good  right-hand  men  at  all  points.  The 
one  mistake  is  Abercrombie, —  "  Mrs.  Nabby  Crombie  "  the  sol- 
diers called  him.  He  was  an  indifferent,  negative  sort  of  man  ; 
and  indifferent,  negative  sorts  of  people,  by  their  dishwater 
goodness,  can  sometimes  do  more  harm  in  critical  positions  than 
the  branded  criminal.  Red  tape  had  forced  him  on  Pitt,  but  Pitt 
trusted  to  the  excellence  of  the  subordinate  officers,  especially 
Lord  Howe. 

Louisburg  first! 

No  more  dillydallying  and  delay  "  to  plant  cabbages  !  "  The 
thing  is  to  reach  Louisburg  before  the  French  have  entered  the 
harbor.  Men-of-war  are  stationed  to  intercept  the  French  vessels 
coming  from  the  Mediterranean,  and  before  winter  has  passed 
Admiral  Boscawen  has  sailed  for  America  with  one  hundred  and 
fifty  vessels,  including  forty  men-of-war,  frigates,  and  transports 
carrying  twelve  thousand  men.  General  Amherst  is  to  command 
the  land  forces,  and  with  Amherst  is  Brigadier  James  Wolfe,  age 
thirty-one,  a  tall,  slim,  fragile  man,  whose  delicate  frame  is  tenanted 
by  a  lion  spirit  ;  or,  to  change  the  comparison,  by  a  motive  power 
too  strong  for  the  weak  body  that  held  it.  By  May  the  fleet  is  in 
Halifax.  By  June  Amherst  has  joined  Boscawen,  and  the  ships 
beat  out  for  Louisburg  through  heavy  fog,  with  a  sea  that  boils 
over  the  reefs  in  angry  surf. 

Louisburg  was  in  worse  condition  than  during  the  siege  of 
1745.  The  broken  walls  have  been  repaired,  but  the  filling  is  false, 
—  sand  grit.  Its  population  is  some  four  thousand,  of  whom  three 
thousand  eight  hundred  are  the  garrison.  On  the  ships  lying  in 
the  harbor  are  three  thousand  marines,  a  defensive  force,  in  all, 


LOUISBURG  BESIEGED 


253 


of  six  thousand  eight  hundred.  On  walls  and  in  bastions  are 
some  four  hundred  and  fifty  heavy  guns,  cannon,  and  mortars. 
Imagine  a  triangle  with  the  base  to  the  west,  the  two  sides  run- 
ning out  to  sea  on  the  east.  The  fort  is  at  the  apex.  The  wall 
of  the  base  line  is  protected  by  a  marsh.  On  the  northeast  side 
is  the  harbor  protected  by  reefs  and  three  batteries.  Along  the 
south  side,  Drucourt,  the  French  commander,  has  stationed  two 
thousand  men  at  three  different  points  where  landing  is  possible, 
to  construct  batteries  be- 
hind barricades  of  logs. 

Fog  had  concealed  the 
approach  of  the  English, 
but  such  a  ground  swell 
was  raging  over  the  reefs 
as  threatened  any  ship 
with  instant  destruction. 
For  a  week  Amherst  and 
Wolfe  and  Lawrence  row 
up  and  down  through  the 
roiling  mist  and  raging 
surf  and  singing  winds  to 
take  stock  of  the  situa- 
tion,. With  those  bat- 
teries at  the  landing  places 
there  is  only  one  thing  to  do,  —  cannonade  them,  hold  their  atten- 
tion in  a  life-and-death  fight  while  the  English  soldiers  scramble 
through  the  surf  for  the  shore.  From  sunrise  to  sundown  of  the 
8th  furious  cannonading  set  the  green  seas  churning  and  tore  up 
the  French  barricades  as  by  hurricane.  At  sunset  the  firing 
ceased,  and  three  detachments  of  troops  launched  out  in  whale- 
boats  at  three  in  the  morning,  two  of  the  detachments  to  make 
a  feint  of  landing,  while  Wolfe  with  the  other  division  was  to 
run  through  the  surf  for  the  shore  at  Freshwater  Cove.  The 
French  were  not  deceived.  They  let  Wolfe  approach  within 
range,  when  the  log  barricade  flashed  to  flame  with  a  thousand 
sharpshooters.    Wolfe  had  foreseen  the  snare  and  had  waved  his 


B<  1SCAWEN 


254  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

troops  off  when  he  noticed  that  two  boat  loads  were  rowing 
ashore  through  a  tremendous  surf  under  shelter  of  a  rocky  point. 
Quickly  he  signaled  the  other  boats  to  follow.  In  a  trice  the  boats 
had  smashed  to  kindling  on  the  reefs,  but  the  men  were  wading 
ashore,  muskets  held  high  over  head,  powder  pouches  in  teeth, 
and  rushed  with  bayonets  leveled  against  the  French,  who  had 
dashed  from  cover  to  prevent  the  landing.  This  unexpected  land- 
ing had  cut  the  French  off  from  Louisburg.  Retreating  in  panic, 
they  abandoned  their  batteries  and  fifty  dead.  The  English  had 
lost  one  hundred  and  nine  in  the  surf.  It  is  said  that  Wolfe 
scrambled  from  the  water  like  a  drowned  rat  and  led  the  rush 
with  no  other  weapon  in  hand  but  his  cane. 

To  land  the  guns  through  the  jostling  sea  was  the  next  task. 
It  was  done,  as  in  1745,  by  a  pontoon  bridge  of  small  boats,  but 
the  work  took  till  the  29th  of  June.  Wolfe,  meanwhile,  has 
marched  with  twelve  hundred  men  round  to  the  rear  of  the  marsh 
and  comes  so  suddenly  on  the  Grand  and  Lighthouse  Batteries, 
which  defend  the  harbor,  that  the  French  abandon  them  to  re- 
treat within  the  walls.  This  gives  the  English  such  control  of  the 
harbor  entrance  that  Drucourt,  the  French  commander,  sinks  six 
of  his  ships  across  the  channel  to  bar  out  Boscawen's  fleet,  the 
masts  of  the  sunken  vessels  sticking  above  the  water.  Amherst's 
men  are  working  like  demons,  building  a  road  for  the  cannon 
across  the  marsh  and  trenching  up  to  the  back  wall  ;  but  they 
work  only  at  night  and  are  undiscovered  by  the  French  till  the 
9th  of  July.  Then  the  French  rush  out  with  a  whoop  to  drive 
them  off,  but  the  English  already  have  their  guns  mounted,  and 
Drucourt's  men  are  glad  to  dash  for  shelter  behind  the  cracking 
walls.  It  now  became  a  game  of  cannon  play  pure  and  simple. 
Boscawen  from  harbor  front  hurls  his  whistling  bombs  overhead, 
to  crash  through  roofs  inside  the  walls.  Wolfe  from  the  Light- 
house Battery  throws  shells  and  flaming  combustibles  straight 
into  the  midst  of  the  remaining  French  fleet.  At  last,  on  July 
21st,  masts,  sails,  tar  ropes,  take  fire  in  a  terrible  conflagration, 
and  three  of  the  fleet  burn  to  the  water  line  with  terrific  explo- 
sions of  their  powder  magazines  ;  then  the  flames  hiss  out  above 


SURRENDER  OF  FAMOUS   FORT 


255 


the  rocking  hulls.  Only  two  ships  are  left  to  the  French,  and  the 
deep  bomb-proof  casemates  inside  the  fort  between  outer  and 
inner  walls,  where  the  families  and  the  wounded  have  been  shel- 
tered, are  now  in  flame.  Amherst  loads  his  shells  with  combus- 
tibles and  pours  one  continuous  rain  of  fiery  death  on  the  doomed 
fort.  The  houses,  which  are  of  logs,  flame  like  kindling  wood, 
and  now  the  timber  work  of  the  stone  bastions  is  burning  from 
bombs  hurtling  through  the  roofs.  The  walls  crash  down  in 
masses.  The  scared  surgeons,  all  bloody  from  amputating  shat- 
tered limbs,  no  longer  stand  in  safety  above  their  operating  tables. 


THE   SIEGE    OF    LOUISBURG 
(From  a  contemporary  print) 

It  is  said  that  Madame  Drucourt,  the  Governor's  wife,  actually 
stayed  on  the  walls  to  encourage  the  soldiers,  with  her  own  hands 
fired  some  of  the  great  guns,  and,  when  the  overworked  surgeons 
flagged  from  terror  and  lack  of  sleep,  it  was  Madame  Drucourt 
who  attended  to  the  wounded.  Drucourt  is  for  holding  out  to  the 
death,  until  one  dark  night  the  English  row  into  the  harbor  and 
capture  his  two  last  ships.  Then  Drucourt  asks  for  terms,  July 
26  ;  but  the  terms  are  stern,  —  utter  surrender,  —  and  Drucourt 
would  have  fought  till  every  man  fell  from  the  walls,  had  not  one  oJ 
the  civil  officers  rushed  after  the  commander's  messenger  carrying 


256  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 

the  refusal,  and  shouted  across  the  ditches  to  the  English  :  "  We 
accept !    We  surrender  !    We  accept  your  terms  !  " 

Counting"  soldiers,  marines,  and  townspeople,  in  all  five  thou- 
sand French  pass  over  to  Amherst,  to  be  carried  prisoners  on 
Boscawen's  fleet  to  England.  Wolfe  was  for  proceeding  at  once 
to  Quebec,  but  Amherst  considered  the  season  too  late  and  deter- 
mined to  complete  the  work  where  he  was.  One  detachment 
goes  to  receive  the  surrender  of  Isle  St.  John,  henceforth  known 
as  Prince  Edward  Island.  Another  division  proceeds  up  St.  John 
River,  New  Brunswick,  burning  all  settlements  that  refuse  uncon- 
ditional surrender.  Wolfe's  grenadiers  are  sent  to  reduce  Gaspe 
and  Miramichi  and  northern  New  Brunswick.  And  now,  lest 
blundering  statecraft  for  a  second  time  return  the  captured  fort 
to  France,  Amherst  and  Boscawen  order  the  complete  disarma- 
ment and  destruction  of  Louisburg.  What  cannon  cannot  be 
removed  are  tumbled  into  the  marsh  or  upset  into  the  sea.  The 
stones  from  the  walls  are  carried  away  to  Halifax.  By  1760, 
of  Louisburg,  the  glory  of  New  France,  the  pride  of  America, 
there  remains  not  a  vestige  but  grassed  slopes  overgrown  by 
nettles,  ditches  with  rank  growth  of  weeds,  stone  piles  where 
the  wild  vines  grow,  and  an  inner  yard  where  the  cows  of  the 
fisher  folk  pasture. 

Not  a  poor  beginning  for  the  campaign  of  1758,  though  bad 
enough  news  has  come  from  Major  General  Abercrombie,  which 
was  the  real  explanation  of  Amherst's  refusal  to  push  on  to 
Quebec. 

Abercrombie,  with  fifteen  thousand  men,  the  pick  of  the  reg- 
ulars and  provincials,  had  launched  out  on  Lake  George  on  the 
5th  of  July  with  over  one  thousand  boats,  to  descend  the  lake 
northward  to  the  French  fort  of  Carillon  or  Ticonderoga.  Again, 
it  would  require  artist's  brush  to  paint  the  scene.  Rogers'  Ran- 
gers, dressed  in  buckskin,  led  the  way  in  birch  canoes.  Lord 
Howe  was  there,  dressed  like  a  bushfighter  ;  and  with  bagpipes 
setting  the  echoes  ringing  amid  the  lonely  mountains,  were  the 
Highland  regiments  in  their  tartan  plaids.  Flags  floated  from 
the  prow  of  every  Ixiat.    Each  battalion  had  its  own  regimental 


THE  ATTACK  AT  TICONDEROGA 


•57 


band.  Scarcely  a  breath  dimpled  the  waters  of  the  lake,  and 
the  sun  shone  without  a  cloud.  Little  wonder  those  who  passed 
through  the  fiery  Aceldama  that  was  to  come,  afterwards  looked 
back  on  this  scene  as  the  fairest  in  their  lives. 

Montcalm  had  only  arrived  at  Ticonderoga  on  June  30th. 
There  was  no  doubting  the  news.  His  bushrovers  brought  in 
word  that  the  English  were  advancing  in  such  multitudes  their 
boats  literally  covered 
the  lake.  It  looked  as  if 
the  fate  of  Fort  William 
Henry  were  to  be  re- 
versed. Montcalm  never 
dreamed  of  Abercrombie 
attacking  without  artil- 
lery. To  stay  cooped  up 
in  the  fort  would  invite 
destruction.  Therefore 
Montcalm  ordered  his 
men  out  to  construct  a 
circular  breastwork  from 
the  River  of  the  Chutes 
on  the  southeast,  which 
empties  Lake  George, 
round  towards  Lake 
Champlain  on  the  north- 
west. Huge  trees  were 
felled,  pile  on  pile,  top- 
most   branches  spiked 

and  pointed  outwards.  Behind  these  Montcalm  intrenched  his 
four  thousand  men,  lying  in  lines  three  deep,  with  grenadiers  in 
reserve  behind  to  step  up  as  the  foremost  lines  fell.  At  a  cannon 
signal  from  the  fort  the  men  were  to  rise  to  their  places,  but  not 
to  tire  till  the  English  were  entangled  in  the  brushwood.  It  was 
blisteringly  hot  weather.  It  is  said  that  the  troops  took  off  their 
heavy  three-cornered  hats  and  lay  in  their  shirt  sleeves,  hand  on 
musket,  speaking  no  word,  but  waiting. 


AMHERST 


258  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

On  came  the  English  in  martial  array,  pausing  in  the  Narrows 
at  five  o'clock  for  the  troops'  evening  meal,  moving  on  before 
daylight  of  July  6  to  the  landing  place.  The  Rangers  had 
brought  in  word  that  Levis  was  coming  posthaste  to  Montcalm's 
aid.  Abercrombie  thought  to  defeat  Montcalm  before  reinforce- 
ments could  come  ;  and  now  he  committed  his  cardinal  error.  He 
advanced  across  the  portage  without  his  heavy  artillery.  Half- 
way over,  the  voice  of  the  French  scouts  rang  out,  "  Who  goes 
there  ?  "  "  French,"  answer  the  English  soldiers  ;  but  the  French 
were  not  tricked.  The  ambushed  scouts  fired.  Lord  Howe,  the 
very  spirit  of  the  English  army,  dropped  dead,  shot  through  the 
breast,  though  the  English  avenged  his  loss  by  cutting  the  French 
scouts  to  pieces.  On  the  night  of  the  7th  the  English  army 
bivouacked  in  sight  of  the  French  barricade.  Promptly  at  twelve 
o'clock  next  day  a  cannon  shot  from  Ticonderoga  brought 
every  Frenchman  behind  the  tree  line  to  his  place  at  a  leap. 
Abercrombie  had  ordered  his  men  to  rush  the  barricade.  There 
was  fearful  silence  till  the  English  were  within  twenty  paces  of 
the  trees.  There  they  broke  from  quick  march  to  a  run  with  a 
wild  halloo  !  Death  unerring  blazed  from  the  French  barricade, 
—  not  bullets  only,  but  broken  glass  and  ragged  metal  that  tore 
hideous  wounds  in  the  ranks  of  the  English.  Caught  in  the 
brushwood,  unable  even  to  see  their  foes,  the  maddened  troops 
wavered  and  fell  back.  Again  Abercrombie  roared  the  order  to 
charge.  Six  times  they  hurled  themselves  against  the  impassable 
wall,  and  six  times  the  sharpshooters  behind  the  lines  met  the  ad- 
vance with  a  rain  of  fire.  The  Highland  troops  to  the  right  went 
almost  mad.  Lord  John  Murray,  their  commander,  had  fallen, 
and  not  a  tenth  of  their  number  remained  unwounded  ;  but  the 
broadswords  wrought  small  havoc  against  the  spiked  branches 
of  the  log  barricade.  Obstinate  as  he  was  stupid,  Abercrombie 
kept  his  men  at  the  bloody  but  futile  attempt  till  the  sun  had  set 
behind  the  mountains,  etching  the  sad  scene  with  the  long  painted 
shadows.  Already  almost  two  thousand  English  had  fallen,  - 
seven  hundred  killed,  the  rest  wounded.  The  French  behind  the 
barricade,   where   Montcalm  marched  up  and  down  in  his  shirt 


ARERCROMBIE'S  FORCES  FLEE 


259 


sleeves,  grimed  with  smoke,  encouraging  the  men,  had  lost  less 
than  four  hundred.  In  a  spirit  of  hilarious  bravado  a  young 
Frenchman  sprang  to  the  top  of  the  barricade  and  waved  a  coat 
on  the  end  of  his  bayonet.  Mistaking  it  for  a  flag  of  surrender, 
the  English  ceased  firing  and  clashed  up  with  muskets  held 
on  the  horizontal  above 
heads.  They  were  actu- 
ally scaling  the  wall  when 
a  French  officer,  realiz- 
ing the  blunder,  roared  : 
"  Shoot !  shoot !  you 
fools !  Don't  you  see 
those  men  will  seize 


you 


?  " 


Cleaning  guns  and 
eating  snatches  of  food, 
Montcalm's  men  slept 
that  night  in  their  places 
behind  the  logs.  Mont- 
calm had  passed  from 
man  to  man,  personally 
thanking  the  troops  for 
their  valor.  When  day- 
light came  over  the  hills 
with  wisps  of  fog  like 
cloud  banners  from  the 
mountain  tops,  and  the 
sunlight  pouring  gold 
mist  through  the  valley, 

the  French  rose  and  rubbed  their  eyes.  The)'  could  scarcely 
believe  it  !  Surely  Abercrombie  would  come  back  with  his  heavy 
guns.  Like  the  mists  of  the  morning  the  English  had  vanished. 
Far  down  the  lake  the}'  were  retreating  in  such  panic  terror 
the)r  had  left  their  baggage.  Places  were  found  on  the  portage 
by  French  scouts  where  the  English  had  fled  in  such  haste, 
marchers  had   lost   their  boots  in   the   mud  and    not  stopped  to 


THE   COUNTRY    ROUND   TICONDEROGA 


26o  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

find  them.    Such  was  the  battle  of  Carillon,  or  Ticonderoga, — 
good   reason  for  Amherst  refusing  to  go  on  to  Quebec. 

The  year  closed  with  two  more  victories  for  the  English. 
Brigadier  John  Forbes  and  Washington  succeeded  in  cutting 
their  way  up  to  Fort  Duquesne  by  a  new  road.  They  found  the 
fort  abandoned,  and,  taking  possession  in  November,  renamed  it 
Pittsburg  after  the  great  English  statesman.  The  other  victory 
was  at  Frontenac,  or  Kingston.  As  the  French  had  concentrated 
at  Lake  Champlain,  leaving  Frontenac  unguarded,  Bradstreet 
gained  permission  from  Abercrombie  to  lead  three  thousand  men 
across  Lake  Ontario  against  La  Salle's  old  fur  post.  Crossing 
from  the  ruins  of  old  Oswego,  Bradstreet  encamped  beneath  the 
palisades  of  Frontenac  on  the  evening  of  August  25.  By  morn- 
ing he  had  his  cannon  in  range  for  the  walls.  Inside  the  fort 
Commandant  de  Noyan  had  less  than  one  hundred  men.  At 
seven  in  the  evening  of  August  27  he  surrendered.  Bradstreet 
permitted  the  prisoners  to  go  down  to  Montreal  on  parole,  to  be 
exchanged  for  English  prisoners  held  in  Quebec.  Furs  to  the 
value  of  $800,000,  twenty  cannon,  and  nine  vessels  were  cap- 
tured. Bradstreet  divided  the  loot  among  his  men,  taking  for  him- 
self not  so  much  as  a  penny's  worth.  The  fort  was  destroyed. 
So  were  the  vessels.  The  guns  and  provisions  were  carried  across 
the  lake  and  deposited  at  Fort  Stanwix,  east  of  old  Oswego.  The 
loss  of  Duquesne  on  the  Ohio  and  Fort  Frontenac  on  Lake  Ontario 
cut  French  dominion  in  America  in  two.  Henceforth  there  was 
no  highway  from  New  PYance  to  Louisiana.  In  September,  Aber- 
crombie was  recalled.    Amherst  became  chief  commander. 

Wolfe  had  gone  home  to  England  ill.  It  was  while  sojourning 
at  the  fashion  resort,  Bath,  that  he  fell  desperately  in  love  with 
a  Miss  Lowther,  to  whom  he  became  engaged.  Then  came  the 
summons  from  Pitt  to  meet  the  cabinet  ministers  in  the  war  office 
of  London.  Wolfe  was  asked  to  take  command  of  the  campaign 
in  1759  against  Quebec.  It  had  been  his  ambition  in  Louisburg 
to  proceed  at  once  against  Quebec.    Here  was  his  opportunity. 


WOLFE  SAILS  FOR  QUEBEC 


261 


It  need  not  be  told,  he  took  it.  Amherst  now,  on  the  field  south 
of  Lake  Champlain,  received  ^ioa  day  as  commander  in  chief. 
For  the  greater  task  of  reducing  Quebec,  Wolfe  was  to  receive 
£2  a  day.  Under  him  were  to  serve  Monckton,  Townshend,  and 
Murray.  Admiral  Saunders  was  to  command  the  fleet.  Wolfe 
advised    sending    a    few 


ships  beforehand  to  guard 
the  entrance  to  the  St. 
Lawrence,  and  Durell  was 
dispatched  for  this  pur- 
pose long  before  the  main 
armaments  set  out.  By 
April  30  the  combined 
fleet  and  army  were  at 
Halifax,  Wolfe  with  a 
force  of  some  8500  men. 
Wolfe,  now  only  in  his 
thirty-third  year,  had 
been  the  subject  of  such 
jealousy  that  he  was  actu- 
ally compelled  to  sail  from 
Louisburg  in  June  with- 
out one  penny  of  ready 
money  in  his  army  chest. 
Underling  officers,  whose 
duty  it  was  to  advance 
him  money  on  credit,  had 
raised  difficulties. 


GENERAL   JAMES   WOLFE 


Cheers  and  cheers  yet  again  rent  the  air  as  the  fleet  at  last 
set  out  for  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  soldiers  on  deck  shouting  them- 
selves hoarse  as  Louisburg  faded  over  the  watery  horizon,  the 
officers  at  table  the  first  night  out  at  sea  drinking  toast  after 
toast  to  British  colors  on  every  French  fort  in  America. 

At  Quebec  was  fast  and  furious  preparation  for  the  coming- 
siege.  Bougainville  had  been  sent  to  France  from  Lake  Cham- 
plain  in  1758  with  report  of  the  victory  at  Ticonderoga.    In  vain 


262  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

he  appealed  for  more  money,  more  men  for  the  coming  conflict ! 
The  French  government  sent  him  back  to  Quebec  with  a  bundle 
of  advice  and  platitudes  and  titles  and  badges  and  promotions  and 
soft  words,  but  of  the  sinew  which  makes  war,  men  and  money, 
France  had  naught  to  spare.  The  rumor  of  the  English  invasion 
was  confirmed  by  Bougainville.  Every  man  capable  of  bearing 
arms  was  called  to  Quebec  except  the  small  forces  at  the  out- 
posts, and  Bourlamaque  at  Champlain  was  instructed  if  attacked 
by  Amherst  to  blow  up  Fort  Carillon,  then  Crown  Point,  and 
retire.  Grain  was  gathered  into  the  state  warehouses,  and  so 
stripped  of  able-bodied  men  were  the  rural  districts  that  the  crops 
of  1759  were  planted  by  the  women  and  children.  Fire  ships  and 
rafts  were  constructed,  the  channel  of  St.  Charles  River  closed  by 
sinking  vessels,  and  a  bridge  built  higher  up  to  lead  from  Quebec 
City  across  the  river  eastward  to  Beauport  and  Montmorency. 
Along  the  high  cliffs  of  the  St.  Lawrence  from  Montmorency 
Falls  to  Quebec  were  constructed  earthworks  and  intrenchments 
to  command  the  approach  up  the  river.  What  frigates  had  come 
in  with  Bougainville  were  sent  higher  up  the  St.  Lawrence  to 
be  out  of  danger;  but  the  crews,  numbering  1400,  were  posted 
on  the  ramparts  of  Upper  Town.  Counting  mere  boys,  Quebec 
had  a  defensive  force  variously  given  as  from  9000  to  14,000; 
but  deducting  raw  levies,  who  scarcely  know  the  rules  of  the 
drill  room,  it  is  doubtful  if  Montcalm  could  boast  of  more  than 
5000  able-bodied  fighters.  Still  he  felt  secure  in  the  impregnable 
strength  of  Quebec's  natural  position.  July  29,  when  the  enemy 
lay  encamped  beneath  his  trenches,  he  could  write,  "  Unless  they 
[the  English]  have  wings,  they  cannot  cross  a  river  and  effect  a 
landing  and  scale  a  precipice."  One  cruel  feature  there  was  of 
Quebec's  preparations.  To  keep  the  habitants  on  both  sides  the 
river  loyal,  Vaudreuil,  the  governor,  issued  a  proclamation  telling 
the  people  that  the  English  intended  to  massacre  the  inhabitants, 
men,  women,  and  children.  Meanwhile,  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
the  chapel  bells  are  ringing  .  .  .  ringing  .  .  .  lilting  .  .  .  and 
calling  the  faithful  to  prayers  for  the  destruction  of  the  heretic 
invader !     Nuns   lie  prostrate  day  and  night  in  prayer  for  the 


SIGNAL  FIRES  FOREWARN  APPROACH  OF  ENEMY     263 


country's  deliverance  from  the  English.  Holy  processions  march 
through  the  streets,  nuns  and  priests  and  little  children  in  white, 
and  rough  soldiery  in  the  uniforms  with  the  blue  facings,  to  pray 
Heaven's  aid  for  victory.  And  while  the  poor  people  starve  for 
bread,  poultry  is  daily  fattened  on  precious  wheat  that  it  may 
make  tenderest  meat  for  Intendant  Bigot's  table,  where  the  painted 
women  and  drunken 


'V'< 


gamblers  and  gay  officers 
nightly  feast ! 

Signal  fires  light  up 
the  hills  with  ominous 
warning  as  the  English 
fleet  glides  slowly  abreast 
the  current  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  now  pausing 
to  sound  where  the  yel- 
low riffle  of  the  current 
shows  shallows,  now  fol- 
lowing the  course  staked 
out  by  flags,  here  de- 
pending on  the  French- 
man, whom  they  have 
compelled  to  act  as  pilot ! 
Nightly  from  hill  to  hill 
the  signal  fires  leap  to 
the  sky,  till  one  flames 
from    Cape  Tourmente, 

and  Quebec  learns  that  the  English  are  surely  very  near.  Among 
the  Englishmen  who  are  out  in  the  advance  boats  sounding  is  a 
young  man,  James  Cook,  destined  to  become  a  great  navigator. 

June  25,  sail  after  sail,  frigate  after  frigate  bristling  with  can- 
non, literally  swarming  with  soldiers  and  marines,  glide  round  the 
end  of  Orleans  Island  through  driving  rain  and  a  squall,  and  to 
clatter  of  anchor  chains  and  rattle  of  falling  sails,  come  to  rest. 
"Pray  Heaven  they  be  wrecked  as  Sir  Hovenden  Walker's  fleet 
was  wrecked  long  ago,"  sigh  the  nuns  of  Quebec.    If  they  had 


BOUGAINVILLE 


264  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

prayed  half  as  hard  that  their  corrupt  rulers,  their  Bigots  and' their 
kings  and  their  painted  women  whose  nod  could  set  Europe  on  fire 
with  war,  —  if  the  holy  sisterhood  had  prayed  for  this  gang  of  vam- 
pires whose  vices  had  brought  doom  to  the  land,  to  be  swallowed 
in  some  abyss,  their  prayers  might  have  been  more  effective  with 
Heaven. 

Next  day  a  band  of  rangers  lands  from  Wolfe's  ships  and  finds 
the  Island  of  Orleans  deserted.  On  the  church  door  the  cure 
has  pinned  a  note,  asking  the  English  not  to  molest  his  church  ; 
and  expressing  sardonic  regret  that  the  invaders  have  not  come 
soon  enough  to  enjoy  the  fresh  vegetables  of  his  garden. 

Wolfe  for  the  first  time  gazes  on  the  prize  of  his  highest  ambi- 
tion, —  Quebec.  He  is  at  Orleans,  facing  the  city.  To  his  right 
is  the  cataract  of  Montmorency.  From  the  falls  past  Beauport  to 
St.  Charles  River,  the  St.  Lawrence  banks  are  high  cliffs.  Above 
the  cliffs  are  Montcalm's  intrenched  fighters.  Then  the  north 
shore  of  the  St.  Lawrence  suddenly  sheers  up  beyond  St.  Charles 
River  into  a  lofty,  steep  precipice.  The  precipice  is  Quebec  City: 
Upper  Town  and  the  convents  and  the  ramparts  and  Castle  St. 
L<  mis  nestling  on  an  upper  ledge  of  the  rock  below  Cape  Diamond ; 
Lower  Town  crowding  between  the  foot  of  the  precipice  and  tide 
water.  Look  again  how  the  St.  Lawrence  turns  in  a  sharp  angle 
at  the  precipice.  Three  sides  of  the  city  are  water, — St. Charles 
River  nearest  Wolfe,  then  the  St.  Lawrence  across  the  steep  face 
of  the  rock,  then  the  St.  Lawrence  again  along  a  still  steeper 
precipice  to  the  far  side.  Only  the  rear  of  the  city  is  vulnerable  ; 
but  it  is  walled  and  inaccessible. 

Quebec  was  a  prize  for  any  commander's  ambition  ;  but  how 
to  win  it  ? 

The  night  of  June  28  is  calm,  warm,  pitch-dark,  the  kind  of 
summer  night  when  the  velvet  heat  touches  you  as  with  a  hand. 
The  English  soldiers  of  the  crowded  transports  have  gone  ashore, 
when  suddenly  out  of  the  darkness  glide  fire  ships  as  from  an 
under  world,  with  flaming  mast  poles,  and  hulls  in  shadow,  roaring 
with  fire,  throwing  out  combustibles,  drifting  straight  down  on 
the  tide  towards  the  English  fleet.    But  the  French  have  managed 


BOTH   SIDES  BECOME  SCALP   RAIDERS  265 

badly.  They  have  set  the  ships  on  fire  too  soon.  The  air  is  torn 
to  tatters  by  terrific  explosions  that  light  up  the  outlines  of  the 
city  spires  and  churn  the  river  to  billows.  Then  the  English 
sailors  are  out  in  small  boats,  avoiding  the  suck  of  the  undertow. 
Throwing  out  grappling  hooks,  they  tow  the  flaming  fire  rafts 
away  from  their  fleet.  It  is  the  first  play  of  the  game,  and  the 
French  have  lost. 

Monckton  goes  ashore  south  on  Point  Le'vis  side  next  day. 
Townshend  has  landed  his  troops  east  of  the  Montmorency  on 
the  north  shore.    It  is  the  second  play  of  the  game,  and  Wolfe 


|  /-    .           "%  - 

:-.,'.  Jil                                                   ■*"«■ 

/ 

" 

'     .  .    '-- 

'            .    .!■:"■■ 

yf  p  E  X   c  p. 

.1-'* 
^ ■ 

' 

rr"    " 

■        .    - 

;t  .v:^^y 

. 

■•, 

ciaS3i.->'""~' 

Quebec    1759 

L- 

1HE   SITE    OF   QUEBEC    AND    THE    GROUND   OCCUPIED   DURING 
THE    SIEGE    OB"    1759 

has  violated  every  rule  of  war,  for  he  has  separated  his  forces  in 
three  divisions  close  to  a  powerful  enemy.  He  is  counting  on 
Montcalm's  policy,  however,  and  Montcalm's  play  is  to  lie  inactive, 
sleeping  in  his  boots,  refusing  to  be  lured  to  battle  till  winter 
drives  the  English  off.  It  is  usual  in  all  accounts  of  the  great 
struggle  to  find  that  certain  facts  have  been  suppressed.  Let  us 
frankly  confess  that  when  the  English  rangers  went  foraging 
they  brought  back  French  scalps,  and  when  the  French  Indians 
went  scouting  they  returned  with  English  scalps.  However,  man- 
ners were  improving.  Strict  orders  are  given  :  this  is  not  a  war 
on  women  ;  neither  women  nor  children  are  to  be  touched.  W< 'lk- 
posts  proclamations  on  the  parish  churches,  calling  on  the  habitants 
to  stand  neutral.    In  answer,  they  tear  the  proclamations  down. 


266  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

By  July  12  Wolfe's  batteries  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  are 
preparing  to  shell  the  city.  A  band  of  five  hundred  students  and 
habitants  rows  across  from  Quebec  by  night  to  dislodge  the  Eng- 
lish gunners,  but  mistaking  their  own  shots  for  the  shots  of  the 
enemy,  fall  on  each  other  in  the  dark  and  retreat  in  wild  confusion. 
Then  the  English  cannon  begin  to  do  business.  In  a  single  day 
half  the  houses  of  Lower  Town  are  battered  to  bits,  and  high-tossed 
bombs  have  plunged  through  roofs  of  Upper  Town,  burning  the 
cathedral  and  setting  a  multitude  of  lesser  buildings  on  fire.  In  the 
confusion  of  cannonade  and  counter-cannonade  and  a  city  on  fire, 
shrouding  the  ruins  in  a  pall  of  smoke,  some  English  ships  slip 
up  the  river  beyond  Quebec,  but  there  the  precipice  of  the  river 
bank  is  still  steeper,  and  Bougainville  is  on  guard  with  two  thou- 
sand men.  For  thirty  miles  around  the  English  rangers  have  laid 
the  country  waste.    Still  Montcalm  refuses  to  come  out  and  fight. 

The  enforced  inaction  exasperates  Wolfe,  whose  health  is  fail- 
ing him,  and  who  sees  the  season  passing,  no  nearer  the  object  of 
his  ambition  than  when  he  came.  As  he  had  stormed  the  batteries 
of  Louisburg,  so  now  he  decides  to  storm  the  heights  of  Montmo- 
rency. To  any  one  who  has  stood  on  the  knob  of  rock  above  the 
gorge  where  the  cataract  plunges  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  or  has 
scrambled  down  the  bank  slippery  with  spray,  and  watched  the 
black  underpool  whirl  out  to  the  river,  Wolfe's  venture  must 
seem  madness  ;  for  French  troops  lined  the  intrenchments  above 
the  cliff,  and  below  a  redoubt  or  battery  had  been  built.  Below 
the  cataract,  when  the  tide  ebbed,  was  a  place  which  might  be 
forded.  From  sunrise  to  sunset  all  the  last  days  of  July,  Wolfe's 
cannon  boomed  from  Levis  across  the  city,  from  the  fleet  in  mid 
channel,  from  the  land  camp  on  the  east  side  of  Montmorency. 
Montcalm  rightly  guessed,  this  presaged  a  night  assault.  To  hide 
his  design,  Wolfe  kept  his  transports  shifting  up  and  down  the 
St.  Lawrence,  as  if  to  land  at  Beauport  halfway  to  the  city.  All 
the  same,  two  armed  transports,  as  if  by  chance,  managed  to  get 
themselves  stranded  just  opposite  the  redoubt  below  the  cliff, 
where  their  cannon  would  protect  a  landing.  Montcalm  saw  the 
move  and  strengthened  the  troops  behind  the  earthworks  on  the 


ENGLISH  FAIL  AT  MONTMORENCY  267 

top  of  the  cliff.  Toward  sunset  the  tide  ebbed,  and  at  that  time 
cannon  were  firing  from  all  points  with  such  fury  that  the  St. 
Lawrence  lay  hidden  in  smoke.  As  the  air  cleared,  two  thousand 
men  were  seen  wading  and  fording  below  the  falls.  There  was  a 
rush  of  the  tall  grenadiers  for  the  redoubt.  The  French  retreated 
firing,  and  the  cliff  above  poured  down  an  avalanche  of  shots.  At 
that  moment  Wolfe  suffered  a  cruel  and  unforeseen  check.  A 
frightful  thunderstorm  burst  on  the  river,  lashing  earth  and  air 
to  darkness.  It  was  impossible  to  see  five  paces  ahead  or  to  aim 
a  shot.  The  cliff  roared  clown  with  miniature  rivulets  and  the  slip- 
pery clay  bank  gave  to  every  step  of  the  climbers  slithering  down 
waist-deep  in  mud  and  weeds.  Powder  was  soaked.  As  the  rain 
ceased,  Indians  were  seen  sliding  down  the  cliff  to  scalp  the 
wounded.  Wolfe  ordered  a  retreat.  The  drums  rolled  the  recall 
and  the  English  escaped  pellmell,  the  French  hooting  with  de- 
rision at  the  top  of  the  banks,  the  English  yelling  back  strong 
oaths  for  the  enemy  to  come  out  of  its  rat  hole  and  fight  like 
men.  At  the  ford  the  men,  soaked  like  water  rats,  and  a  sorry 
rabble,  got  into  some  sort  of  rank  and  burned  the  two  stranded 
vessels  as  they  passed  back  to  the  east  side.  In  less  than  an  hour 
four  hundred  and  forty-three  men  had  fallen,  the  most  of  them 
killed,  many  both  dead  and  wounded,  into  the  hands  of  the  Indian 
scalpers. 

One  can  guess  Wolfe's  fearful  despair  that  night.  A  month 
had  passed.  He  had  accomplished  worse  than  nothing.  In  an- 
other month  the  fleet  must  leave  the  St.  Lawrence  to  avoid  au- 
tumn storms.  Fragile  at  all  times,  Wolfe  fell  ill,  ill  of  fever  and 
of  chagrin,  and  those  officers  over  whose  head  he  had  been  pro- 
moted did  not  spare  their  criticisms,  their  malice.  It  is  so  easy 
to  win  battles  of  life  and  war  in  theory. 

As  for  Quebec,  it  was  felt  the  siege  was  over,  the  contest  won. 
Still  bad  news  had  come  from  the  west.  Niagara  had  fallen  be- 
fore the  English,  and  the  forts  on  Lake  Champlain  were  aban- 
doned to  Amherst.  Nothing  now  barred  the  English  advance 
clown  the  Richelieu  to  Montreal.  Montcalm  dispatches  Levis  to 
Montreal  with  eight  hundred  men. 


268 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


Why  did  Amherst  not  come  to  Wolfe's  aid  ?  His  enemies  say 
because  the  commanding  general  was  so  sure  the  siege  of  Quebec 
would  fail  that  he  did  not  want  any  share  of  the  blame.  That 
may  be  unjust.  Amherst  was  of  the  slow,  cautious  kind,  who 
marched  doggedly  to  victory.  He  may  not  have  wished  to  risk  a 
second  Ticonderoga.    Wolfe's  position  was  now  desperate.    His 

only  alternatives  were 
success  or  ruin.  "You 
can't  cure  me,"  he  told 
his  surgeon,  "but  mend 
me  up  so  I  can  go  on  for 
a  few  days."  What  he 
did  in  those  few  days 
left  his  name  immortal. 
Robert  Stobo,  who  had 
been  captured  from  Wash- 
ington's battalions  on  the 
Ohio,  and  who  knew 
every  foot  of  Quebec 
from  five  years  of  cap- 
tivity, had  escaped,  joined 
Wolfe,  and  drawn  plans 
of  all  surroundings.  From 
his  ship  above  Quebec 
Wolfe  could  see  there  was 
one  path  just  behind  the 
city  where  men  might 
ascend  to  the  Plains  of  Abraham  outside  the  rear  wall,  but  the 
path  was  guarded,  and  Bougainville's  troops  patrolled  westward 
as  far  as  Cape  Rouge. 

It  was  now  September.  From  their  trenches  above  the  river 
the  French  could  see  the  English  evacuating  camp  at  Montmo- 
rency. They  were  jubilant.  Surely  the  English  were  giving  up  the 
siege.  Night  after  night  English  transports  loaded  with  soldiers 
ascended  the  St.  Lawrence  above  Quebec.  What  did  it  mean  ? 
Was  it  a  feint  to  draw  Montcalm's  men  away  from  the  east  side? 


LOUIS   JOSEPH,   MARQUIS   DE   MONTCALM 


SLIP  SILENTLY    DOWN   THE  GREAT    RIVER         269 

The  French  general  was  sleeplessly  anxious.  He  had  not  passed 
a  night  in  bed  since  the  end  of  June.  The  fall  rains  were  begin- 
ning, and  another  month  of  work  in  the  trenches  meant  half  the 
army  invalided. 

The  most  of  the  English  fleet  was  working  up  and  down  with 
the  tide  between  the  western  limits  of  Quebec  and  Cape  Rouge, 
nine  miles  away.  Bougainville's  force  was  increased  to  three  thou- 
sand men,  and  he  was  ordered  to  keep  especial  watch  westward. 
The  steepness  of  the  precipice  was  guard  enough  near  the  town. 
Wednesday,  the  12th  of  September,  the  English  troops  were 
ordered  to  hold  themselves  in  readiness.  They  passed  the  day 
cleaning  their  arms,  and  were  ordered  not  to  speak  after  nightfall 
or  permit  a  sound  to  be  heard  from  the  ranks.  Admiral  Saunders 
with  the  main  fleet  was  to  feign  attack  on  the  east  side  of  the 
city.  Admiral  Holmes  with  Wolfe's  army,  now  numbering  not  four 
thousand  men,  was  to  glide  down  with  the  tide  from  Cape  Rouge 
above  Quebec.  Because  the  main  fleet  lay  on  the  east  side  Mont- 
calm felt  sure  the  attack  would  come  from  that  quarter.  Deserters 
had  brought  word  to  Wolfe  that  some  flatboats  with  provisions 
were  coming  down  the  river  to  Quebec  that  night. 

Here,  then,  the  position  !  Saunders  on  the  east  side,  opposite 
Beauport,  feigning  attack;  Montcalm  watching  him  from  the 
Beauport  cliffs  ;  Wolfe  nine  miles  up  the  river  west  of  the  city  ; 
Bougainville  watching  him,  watching  too  for  those  provisions,  for 
Quebec  was  down  to  empty  larder. 

It  is  said  that  as  Wolfe  rested  in  his  ship,  the  Sutherland,  off 
Cape  Rouge,  he  felt  strange  premonition  of  approaching  death,  and 
repeated  the  words  of  dray's  "Elegy," — "The  paths  of  glory  lead 
but  to  the  grave,"  —  but  this  has  been  denied.  Certainly  he  had 
such  strange  consciousness  of  impending  death  that,  taking  a 
miniature  of  his  fiancee  from  his  breast,  he  asked  a  fellow-officer 
to  return  it  to  her.  About  midnight  the  tide  began  to  ebb,  and 
two  lanterns  were  hung  as  a  sign  from  the  masthead  of  the 
Sutherland.  Instantly  all  the  ships  glided  silent  as'  the  great 
river  down  with  the  tide.  The  night  was  moonless.  Near  the 
little   bridle  path    now   known   as  Wolfe's   Cove   the   ships   draw 


270 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


ashore.  Sharp  as  iron  on  stone  a  sentry's  voice  rings  out, 
"Who  goes  ?  " 

"The  French,"  answers  an  officer,  who  speaks  perfect  French. 

"  What  regiment  ?  " 

"The  Queen's,"  replies  the  officer,  who  chances  to  know  that 
Bougainville  has  a  regiment  of  that  name.  Thinking  they  were 
the  provision  transports,  this  sentry  was  satisfied.  Not  so  another. 
He  ran  down  to  the  water's  edge,  and  peering  through  the  dark- 
ness called,  "Why  can't  you  speak  louder?" 

"  Hush  you  !  We  '11  be  overheard,"  answers  the  English  offi- 
cer in  French. 

Thus  the  English  boats  glided  towards  the  little  bridle  path 
that  led  up  to  the  rear  of  the  city.  Wolfe's  Cove  is  not  a  path 
steep  as  a  stair  up  the  face  of  a  rock,  as  the  most  of  the  school- 
books  teach  ;  it  is  a  little  weed-grown,  stony  gully,  easy  to  climb, 
but  slant  and  narrow,  where  I  have  walked  many  a  night  to  drink 
from  the  spring  near  the  foot  of  the  cliff. 

Twenty-four  volunteers  lead  the  way  up  the  stony  path,  silent 
and  agile  as  cats.  At  the  top  are  the  tents  of  the  sentries,  who 
rush  from  their  couches  to  be  overpowered  by  the  English.  Be- 
fore daybreak  the  whole  army  has  ascended  to  the  plateau  behind 
the  city,  known  as  the  Plains  of  Abraham.  No  use  entering  here 
into  the  dispute  whether  Wolfe  took  his  place  where  the  goal 
now  stands,  or  farther  back  from  the  city  wall.  Roughly  speak- 
ing, the  main  line  of  Wolfe's  forces,  three  deep,  with  himself, 
Monckton,  and  Murray  in  command,  faced  the  rear  of  Quebec 
about  three  quarters  of  a  mile  from  what  was  then  the  wall.  To 
his  left  was  the  wooded  road  now  known  as  St.  Louis.  He  posts 
Townshend  facing  this,  at  right  angles  to  his  front  line.  Another 
battalion  lay  in  the  woods  to  the  rear.  There  were,  besides,  a 
reserve  regiment,  and  a  battalion  to  guard  the  landing. 

What  was  Wolfe's  position  ?  Behind  him  lay  Bougainville 
with  three  thousand  French  soldiers,  fresh  and  in  perfect  condi- 
tion. In  front  lay  Quebec  with  three  thousand  more.  To  his  right 
was  the  river  ;  to  his  left,  across  the  St.  Charles,  Montcalm's 
main  army  of  five  thousand  men.    "When  your  enemies  blunder, 


THE  TWO  ARMIES  FACE   EACH  OTHER  27 1 

don't  interrupt  them,"  Napoleon  is  reported  to  have  advised.  If 
some  one  had  not  blundered  badly  now,  it  might  have  been  a 
second  Ticonderoga  with  Wolfe  ;  but  some  one  did  blunder  most 
tragically. 

Montcalm  had  come  from  the  trenches  above  Beau  port,  where 
he  had  been  guarding  against  Saunders'  landing,  and  he  had 
ordered  hot  tea  and  beer  served  to  the  troops,  when  he  hap- 
pened to  look  across  the  St.  Charles  River  towards  Quebec.  It 
had  been  cloudy,  but  the  sun  had  just  burst  out  ;  and  there, 
standing  in  the  morning  light,  were  the  English  in  battle  array, 
red  coat  and  tartan  kilt,  grenadier  and  Highlander,  in  the  dis- 
tance a  confused  mass  of  color,  which  was  not  the  white  uni- 
form of  the  French. 

"This  is  a  serious  business,"  said  Montcalm  hurriedly  to  his 
aide.  Then,  spurs  to  his  big  black  horse,  he  was  galloping  furi- 
ously along  the  Beauport  road,  over  the  resounding  bridge  across 
the  St.  Charles,  up  the  steep  cobblestone  streets  that  lead  from 
Lower  to  Upper  Town,  and  out  by  the  St.  Louis  road  to  the 
Plains  of  Abraham.  In  Quebec  all  was  confusion.  Who  had 
given  the  order  for  the  troops  to  move  out  against  the  English 
without  waiting  for  Bougainville  to  come  from  Cape  Rouge  ? 
But  there  they  were,  huddling,  disorderly  columns  that  crowded 
on  each  other,  filing  out  of  the  St.  Louis  and  St.  John  Gates, 
with  a  long  string  of  battalions  following  Montcalm  up  from  the 
St.  Charles.  And  Ramezay,  who  was  commandant  of  the  city, 
refused  to  send  out  part  of  his  troops  ;  and  Vaudreuil,  who  was 
at  Beauport,  delayed  to  come  ;  and  though  Montcalm  waited  till 
ten  o'clock,  Bougainville  did  not  come  up  from  Cape  Rouge  with 
his  three  thousand  men.  Easy  to  criticise  and  say  Montcalm 
should  have  waited  till  Bougainville  and  Yaudreuil  came.  He 
could  not  wait,  for  Wolfe's  position  cut  his  forces  in  two,  and 
the  army  was  without  supplies.  With  his  four  thousand  five 
hundred  men  he  accepted  fate's  challenge. 

Bagpipes  shrilling,  English  flags  waving  to  the  wind,  the 
French  soldiers  shouting  riotously,  the  two  armies  moved 
towards  each  other.    Then  the  English  halted,  silent,  motionless 


272  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

statues.  The  men  were  refreshed,  for  during  the  four  hours' 
wait  from  daylight,  Wolfe  had  permitted  them  to  rest  on  the 
grassed  plain.  The  French  came  bounding  forward,  firing  as 
they  ran,  and  bending  down  to  reload.  The  English  waited  till 
the  French  were  but  forty  yards  away.  "They  were  not  to 
throw  away  their  fire,"  Wolfe  had  ordered.  Now  forty  yards,  if 
you  measure  it  off  in  your  mind's  eye,  is  short  space  between 
hostile  armies.  It  is  not  as  wide  as  the  average  garden  front  in 
a  suburban  city.  Then  suddenly  the  thin  red  line  of  the  English 
spoke  in  a  crash  of  fire.  The  shots  were  so  simultaneous  that 
they  sounded  like  one  terrific  crash  of  ear-splitting  thunder.  The 
French  had  no  time  to  halt  before  a  second  volley  rent  the  air. 
Then  a  clattering  fire  rocketed  from  the  British  like  echoes  from 
a  precipice.  With  wild  halloo  the  British  were  charging,  .  .  . 
charging,  .  .  .  charging,  the  Highlanders  leading  with  their 
broadswords  flashing  overhead  and  their  mountain  blood  on 
fire,  Wolfe  to  the  fore  of  the  grenadiers  till  a  shot  broke  his 
wrist !  Wrapping  his  handkerchief  about  the  wound  as  he  ran, 
the  victorious  young  general  was  dashing  forward  when  a  sec- 
ond shot  hit  him  and  a  third  pierced  his  breast.  He  staggered  a 
step,  reeled,  fell  to  the  ground.  Three  soldiers  and  an  officer 
ran  to  his  aid  and  carried  him  in  their  arms  to  the  rear.  He 
would  have  no  surgeon.  It  was  useless,  he  said.  "But  the  day 
is  ours,  and  see  that  you  keep  it,  "  he  muttered,  sinking  back 
unconscious.  A  moment  later  he  was  roused  by  wild,  hilarious, 
jubilant,  heart -shattering  shouts. 

"  Gad  !   they  run  !    See  how  they  run  !  "  said  an  English  voice. 

"  Who  —  run  ?  "  demanded  Wolfe,  roused  as  if  from  the  sleep 
of  death. 

"  The  enemy,  sir.    They  give  way  .   .   .  everywhere." 

"Go,  one  of  you,"  commanded  the  dying  general ;  "tell  Colo- 
nel Burton  to  march  Webb's  regiment  down  Charles  River  to 
cut  off  retreat  by  the  bridge.  Now  God  be  praised  !  "  he  added, 
sinking  back;  "I  die  in  peace!"  And  the  spirit  of  Wolfe  had 
departed,  leaving  as  a  heritage  a  New  Empire  of  the  North,  and 
an  immortal  fame. 


w  5 

=  1 

fa  ^ 

O  bo 


DEATH  OF  MONTCALM  273 

Fate  had  gone  hard  against  the  gallant  Montcalm.  The  first 
volley  from  the  English  line  had  mowed  his  soldiers  down  like 
ripe  wheat.  At  the  second  volley  the  ranks  broke  and  the  ground 
was  thick  strewn  with  the  dead.  When  the  English  charged, 
the  French  fled  in  wildest  panic  downhill  for  the  St.  Charles. 
Wounded  and  faint,  Montcalm  on  his  black  charger  was  swept 
swiftly  along  St.  Louis  road  in  the  blind  stampede  of  retreat. 
Near  the  walls  a  ball  passed  through  his  groins.  Two  soldiers 
caught  him  from  falling,  and  steadied  him  on  either  side  of  his 
horse  through  St.  Louis  gate,  where  women,  waiting  in  mad 
anxiety,  saw  the  blood  dripping  over  his  horse. 

"My  God  !    My  God  !    Our  marquis  is  slain  !  "  they  screamed. 

"  It  is  nothing, —  nothing,  —  good  friends  ;  don't  trouble  about 
me,"  answered  the  wounded  general  as  he  passed  for  the  last 
time  under  the  arched  gateway  of  St.  Louis  road. 

"How  long  have  I  to  live  ?  "  he  asked  the  surgeon  into  whose 
house  he  had  been  carried. 

"  Few  hours,  my  lord." 

"So  much  the  better,"  answered  Montcalm.  "I  shall  not  live 
to  see  Quebec  surrendered." 

Before  daylight,  he  was  dead.  Wrapped  in  his  soldier's  cloak, 
laid  in  a  rough  box,  the  body  was  carried  that  night  to  the  Ursu- 
line  Convent,  where  a  bursting  bomb  had  scooped  a  great  hole 
in  the  floor.  Sad-eyed  nuns  and  priests  crowded  the  chapel.  By 
torchlight,  amid  tears  and  sobs,  the  body  was  laid  to  rest. 

Both  generals  had  died  as  they  had  lived,  —  gallantly.  To-day 
both  are  regarded  as  heroes  and  commemorated  by  monuments  ; 
but  how  did  their  governments  treat  them  ?  Of  course  there 
were  wild  huzzas  in  London  and  solemn  memorial  services  over 
Wolfe;  but  when  his  aged  mother  petitioned  the  government 
that  her  dead  son's  salary  might  be  computed  at  ^ioa  day, — 
the  salary  of  a  commander  in  chief, — instead  of  £2  a  day,  she 
was  refused  in  as  curtly  uncivil  a  note  as  was  ever  penned. 
Montcalm  had  died  in  debt,  and  when  his  family  petitioned  the 
French  government  to  pay  these  debts,  the  King  thought  it 
should  be  done,  but  he  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  see  that  his 


274  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

good  intention  was  carried  out.  It  was  easy  and  cheaper  for  ora- 
tors to  talk  of  heroes  giving  their  lives  for  their  country.  There 
are  no  better  examples  in  history  of  the  truth  that  glory  and 
honor  and  true  service  must  be  their  own  reward,  independent  of 
any  compensation,  any  suffering,  any  sacrifice. 

Though  the  panic  retreat  continued  for  hours  and  Quebec  was 
not  surrendered  for  some  days,  the  battle  was  practically  decided 
in  ten  minutes.  The  campaign  of  the  next  year  was  gallant  but 
fruitless.  In  April,  before  the  fleet  has  come  back  to  the  Eng- 
lish, De  Levis  throws  himself  with  the  remnants  of  the  French 
army  against  the  rear  wall  of  Quebec  ;  and  as  Montcalm  had 
come  out  to  fight  Wolfe,  so  Murray  marches  out  to  fight  De 
Levis.  Both  sides  claimed  the  battle  of  Ste.  Foye  as  victory,  but 
another  such  victory  would  have  exterminated  the  English. 
Levis  outside  the  walls,  Murray  glad  to  be  inside  the  walls,  each 
side  waited  for  the  spring  fleet.  If  France  had  come  to  Canada's 
aid,  even  yet  the  country  might  have  been  won,  for  sickness  had 
reduced  Murray's  army  to  less  than  three  thousand  able  men  ; 
but  the  flag  that  flaunted  from  the  ship  that  sailed  into  the  har- 
bor of  Quebec  on  the  9th  of  May  was  British.  That  decided 
Canada's  fate.  De  Levis  retreated  swiftly  for  Montreal,  but  by 
September  the  slow-moving  General  Amherst  has  closed  in  on 
Montreal  from  the  west,  and  up  the  St.  Lawrence  from  the  east 
proceeds  General  Murray.  De  Levis  and  Vaudreuil  had  less  than 
two  thousand  fighting  men  at  Montreal.  September  8th  they 
capitulated,  and  three  years  later,  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  Canada 
passed  under  the  dominion  of  England.  Officers,  many  of  the 
nobility,  Bigot  and  his  crew,  sailed  for  France,  where  the  Intend- 
ant's  ring  were  put  on  trial  and  punished  for  their  corruption  and 
misrule.  Bigot  suffered  banishment  and  the  confiscation  of  prop- 
erty.   The  other  members  of  his  clique  received  like  sentences. 

Spite  of  the  hopes  of  her  devoted  founders,  —  like  Champlain 
and  Maisonneuve,  —  spite  of  the  blood  of  her  martyrs  and  the 
prayers  of  her  missionaries,  spite  of  all  the  pathfinding  of  her 


WHY  NEW  FRANCE  FELL  275 

explorers,  spite  of  the  dauntless  warfare  of  her  soldier  knights, 

—  like  Frontenac  and  Iberville  and  Montcalm,  —  New  France 
had  fallen. 

Why  ? 

For  two  reasons  :  because  of  England's  sea  power ;  because 
of  the  unblushing,  shameless,  gilded  corruption  of  the  French 
court,  which  cared  less  for  the  fate  of  Canada  than  the  leer  of  a 
painted  fool  behind  her  fan.  But  be  this  remembered,  —  and 
here  was  the  hand  of  overruling  Destiny  or  Providence,  —  the 
fall  of  New  France,  like  the  fall  of  the  seed  to  the  ready  soil, 
was  the  rebirth  of  a  new  nation.  Henceforth  it  is  not  New 
France,  the  appendage  of  an  Old  World  nation.    It  is  Canada, 

—  a  New  Dominion. 

To-day  wander  round  Quebec.  Tablets  and  monuments  con- 
secrate many  of  the  old  hero  days.  Though  the  British  govern- 
ment rebuilt  a  line  of  walls  in  the  early  eighteen  hundreds,  you 
will  find  it  hard  to  trace  even  a  vestige  of  the  old  French  walls. 
Mounds  tell  you  where  there  were  bastions.  A  magnificent  bou- 
levard tops  the  most  of  the  old  ramparts.  An  imposing  hotel 
stands  where  Castle  St.  Louis  once  frowned  over  the  St.  Law- 
rence. Of  the  palace  where  the  Intendant  held  his  revels  there 
are  not  even  ruins.  If  you  drive  out  past  Beauport,  you  will  find 
at  the  end  of  a  nine-mile  forest  path  the  crumbling  brick  walls 
of  Chateau  Bigot,  the  Hermitage,  half  buried,  in  the  days  when 
I  visited  it,  with  rose  vines  and  orchard  trees  gone  wild.  That  is 
all  you  will  find  of  the  court  clique  whose  folly  brought  Canada's 
doom  ;  but  as  you  drive  back  from  Beauport  there  towers  the 
city  from  the  rocky  heights  above  the  St.  Lawrence,  —  chapel 
spire  and  cross  and  domed  cathedral  roofs  aglint  in  the  sunlight 
like  a  city  of  gold.  The  church,  baptized  by  the  blood  of  its 
martyrs,  is  there  in  pristine  power  ;  and  the  fruitful  meadows 
bear  witness  to  the  prosperity  of  the  habitant  on  whom  the  bur- 
den fell  in  the  days  of  the  ancient  regime.  Who  shall  say  that 
habitant  and  church  do  not  deserve  the  place  of  power  they  hold 
in  the  government  of  the  Dominion  ? 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FROM  1768  TO  1812 

Quebec  has  fallen.  As  jackals  gather  to  feast  on  the  carcass 
of  the  dead  lion,  so  rallies  a  rabble  of  adventurers  on  the  trail  of 
the  victorious  army.  Sutlers,  traders,  teamsters,  riffraff, — soldiers 
of  fortune,  —  stampede  to  Montreal  and  Quebec  as  to  a  new  gold 
field.  When  Major  Robert  Rogers,  the  English  forest  ranger, 
proceeds  up  the  lakes  to  take  over  the  western  fur  posts, — Presqu' 
Isle,  Detroit,  Michilimackinac, — he  is  followed  by  hosts  o'f  adven- 
turers looking  for  swift  way  to  fortune  by  either  the  fur  trade  or 
by  picking  the  bones  of  the  dead  lion.  Major  Rogers,  beating  up 
Lake  Ontario  and  Lake  Erie  with  two  hundred  bushwhackers, 
pausing  in  camp  near  modern  Sandusky,  meets  the  renowned 
Ottawa  warrior,  Pontiac,  who  had  fought  with  the  French  against 
Praddock  and  now  wants  to  know  in  voice  of  thunder  what  all 
this  talk  about  the  French  being  conquered  means  ;  how  dare  the 
French,  because  they  have  proved  paltroons,  deed  away  the  Indian 
lands  of  Canada  ?  How  dare  Rogers,  the  white  chief  of  the  Eng- 
lish rangers,  come  here  with  his  pale-faced  warriors  to  Pontiac's 
land  ?  How  Rogers  answered  the  veteran  red-skinned  warrior  is 
not  told.  All  that  is  known  is —  the  French  gave  up  their  west- 
ern furs  with  bad  grace,  and  the  English  commandants  forgot 
to  appease  the  wound  to  the  Indians'  pride  by  the  customary 
gifts  over  solemn  powwow.  At  Detroit  and  Michilimackinac  the 
French  quietly  withdraw  from  the  palisades  and  build  their  white- 
washed cottages  outside  the  limits  of  the  fort  —  2500  French 
habitants  there  are  at  Detroit. 

If  the  four  or  five  hundred  English  adventurers  who  swarmed 
to  Canada  on  the  heels  of  the  English  army  thought  to  batten 
on  the  sixty  thousand  defeated  French  inhabitants,  far  other- 
wise   thought    and   decreed    the    English   generals,    Sir   Jeffrey 

276 


ENGLISH   LAW  AND  QUEBEC 


277 


Amherst,  and  Murray,  who  succeeded  him.  "You  will  observe 
that  the  French  are  British  subjects  as  much  as  we  are,  and 
treat  them  accordingly,"  ruled  Amherst ;  and  General  Murray, 
who  practically  became  the  first  governor  of  Canada  on  Am- 
herst's withdrawal,   at   once   set   himself  to  establish   justice. 

No  more  forced  labor  ! 
No  more  carrion  birds  of 
the  official  classes,  like 
Bigot,  fattening  on  the 
poor  habitants !  British 
government  in  Canada  for 
the  next  few  years  is 
known  as  the  period  of 
military  rule.  At  Quebec, 
at  Three  Rivers,  at  Mont- 
real, the  commanding 
officers  established  mar- 
tial law  with  biweekly 
courts ;  and  in  the  par- 
ishes the  local  French 
officers,  or  seigneurs,  are 
authorized  to  hear  civil 
cases.  By  the  terms  of 
surrender  the  people  have 
been  guaranteed  their 
religious  liberty;  and  the 
Treaty  of  Paris,  which 
cedes  all  Canada  to  Eng- 
land in  1763,  repeats  this  guarantee,  though  it  leaves  a  thorn 
of  trouble  in  the  flesh  of  England  by  reserving  to  France  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Grand  Banks  fishermen  the  Islands  of 
St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon,  as  well  as  shore  rights  of  fishing  on 
the  west  coast  of  Newfoundland.  Also,  the  proprietary  rights 
of  Jesuits,  Sulpicians,  Franciscans,  are  to  remain  in  abeyance  for 
the  pleasure  of  the  English  crown.  The  rights  of  the  sisterhoods 
are  at  once  confirmed. 


MAJOR   ROBERT   ROGERS 


278 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


One  of  General  Murray's  first  acts  as  governor  is  to  convey 
gentle  hint  to  the  Abbe  Le  Loutre,  now  released  from  prison  and 
come  back  to  Canada,  that  his  absence  will  be  appreciated  by  the 
government.  Within  a  few  years  there  are  five  hundred  English 
residents  in  Montreal  and  Quebec  ;  and  now  trouble  begins  for 
the  government,  —  that  wrangle  between  English  and  French, 
between  Protestant  and  Catholic,  which  is  to  go  on  for  a  hundred 
years  and  retard  Canada's  progress  by  a  century. 

Being  British-born  subjects,  the  few  hundred  demand  that  the 
Governor  call  an  assembly,  —  an  elective  assembly  ;  but  by  the 

laws  of  England,  Roman  Cath- 


NORTH   AMERICA   AT  THE   CLOSE   OF 
THE   FRENCH    WARS,    1763 


olics  must  abjure  their  religion 
before  the)-  can  take  office,  and 
by  the  Treaty  of  Paris  the 
Catholics  of  Canada  have  been 
guaranteed  the  freedom  of  their 
religion.  To  grant  an  elective 
assembly  now  would  mean  that 
the  representatives  of  the  five 
hundred  English  traders  would 
rule  over  70,000  French.  When 
accusing  the  French  Catholics 
of  Quebec  of  remaining  a  soli- 
darity so  that  they  may  wield 
the  balance  of  power,  it  is  well  to  remember  how  and  when  the 
quarrel  began.  Murray  sides  with  the  French  and  stands  like 
a  rock  for  their  right.  He  will  have  no  elective  assembly  under 
present  conditions;  and  he  puts  summary  stop  to  the  business 
English  magistrates  and  English  bailiffs  have  hatched  against 
the  rights  of  the  habitant,  —  of  seizing  lands  for  debt  at  a  time 
when  money  is  scarce,  summoning  the  debtor  simultaneously  to 
two  different  courts,  then  charging  such  outrageous  fees  that 
the  debtor's  land  is  sold  for  the  fees,  to  be  bought  in  by  the 
rascal  ring  who  have  arranged  the  plot.  Ordinances  are  still 
proclaimed  in  primitive  fashion  by  the  crier  going  through  the 
streets  shouting  the   laws   to  beat  of  drum  ;    but  as   the   crier 


FRENCH   RIGHTS  GUARDED  279 

shouts  in  English,  the  habitants  know  no  more  of  the  laws  than 
if  he  shouted  in  Greek. 

As  Murray  opposes  the  clamor  of  the  English  minority,  the 
English  petition  the  home  government  for  Murray's  recall.  In 
the  light  of  the  fact  that  there  were  no  schools  at  all  in  Canada 
except  the  Catholic  seminaries,  and  that  of  the  five  hundred  Eng- 
lish residents  only  two  hundred  had  permanent  homes  in  Mont- 
real and  Quebec,  it  is  rather  instructive  to  read  as  one  of  the 
grievances  of  the  English  minority  "  that  the  only  teachers  in 
Canada  were  Catholics ." 

The  governor-generalship  is  offered  to  Chatham,  the  great 
statesman,  at  ,£5000  a  year.  Chatham  refusing  the  position, 
there  comes  in  1768  as  governor,  at  £1200  a  year,  Sir  Guy 
Carleton,  fellow-soldier  and  friend  of  Wolfe  in  the  great  war, 
who  follows  in  Murray's  footsteps,  stands  like  a  rock  for  the  rights 
of  the  French,  orders  debtors  released  from  jail,  fees  reduced, 
and  a  stoppage  of  forced  land  sales.  Bitter  is  the  disappointment 
to  the  land  jobbers,  who  had  looked  for  a  partisan  in  Carleton; 
doubly  bitter,  for  Carleton  goes  one  better  than  Murray.  For 
years  the  French  government  had  issued  paper  money  in  Quebec. 
After  the  conquest  seventeen  millions  of  these  worthless  govern- 
ment promissory  notes  were  outstanding  in  the  hands  of  the 
habitants.  Knowing  that  the  paper  money  is  to  be  redeemed  by 
the  English  government,  English  jobbers  are  now  busy  buying 
up  the  paper  among  the  poor  French  at  fifteen  cents  on  the  dol- 
lar. Carleton  sends  the  town  crier  from  parish  to  parish,  warning 
the  habitants  to  hold  their  money  and  register  the  amounts  with 
the  magistrates  till  the  whole  matter  can  be  arranged  between 
England  and  France. 

The  first  newspaper  is  established  now  in  Quebec,  The 
Quebec  Gazette,  printed  in  both  English  and  French.  Also 
the  first  trouble  now  arises  from  having  ceded  France  the  two 
tiny  islands  south  of  Newfoundland,  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon. 
By  English  navigation  laws,  all  trade  must  be  in  English  ships. 
Good  !  The  smugglers  slip  into  St.  Pierre  with  a  cargo.  By 
night  a  ship  with  a  white  sail  slips  out  of  St.  Pierre  with  that 


2  SO 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


cargo.  At  Gaspe  the  sail  of  that  ship  is  red  ;  at  Saguenay  it 
is  yellow  ;  at  Quebec  it  is  perhaps  brown.  Ostensibly  the  ship 
is  a  fishing  smack,  but  it  leaves  other  cargo  than  fish  at  the 
habitant  hamlets  of  the  St.  Lawrence  ;  and  the  smuggling  from 
St.  Pierre  that  began  in  Carleton's  time  is  continued  to-day  in 

the  very  same  way. 

And  Guy  Carleton, 
though  he  is  an  Eng- 
lishman and  owes  his 
appointment  to  the  com- 
plaints of  the  English 
minority  against  Murray, 
remains  absolutely  im- 
partial. Good  reason  for 
the  wisdom  of  his  policy. 
There  are  rumblings  from 
the  New  England  colo- 
nies that  forewarn  the 
coming  earthquake.  For 
years  friction  has  been 
growing  between  the 
mother  country  and  the 
colonies.  The  story  of 
the  Revolution  does  not 
belong  to  the  story  of 
Canada.  For  years  far- 
sighted  statesmen  had 
predicted  that  the  min- 
ute New  England  ceased 
to  fear  New  France,  ceased  to  need  England's  protection,  that 
minute  the  growing  friction  would  flame  in  open  war.  Carleton 
foresaw  that  to  pander  to  the  English  minority  would  sacrifice 
the  loyalty  of  the  French.  Thus  he  reported  to  the  home  gov- 
ernment, and  the  Quebec  Act  of  1774  came  to  the  relief  of  the 
French.  By  it  Canada's  boundaries  were  extended  across  the 
region  of  the  Ohio  to  the  Mississippi.   French  laws  were  restored 


GENERAL  MURRAY,  FIRST  GOVERNOR 
OF  QUEBEC 


PONTIAC'S  WAR  28 1 

in  all  civil  actions.  English  law  was  to  rule  in  criminal  cases, 
which  meant  trial  by  jury.  The  French  are  relieved  from  oaths 
of  office  and  enabled  to  serve  on  the  jury.  Also,  the  Catholic 
clergy  is  entitled  to  collect  its  usual  tithe  of  one  twenty-sixth 
from  the  Catholics.  An  elective  assembly  is  refused  for  reasons 
that  are  plain,  but  a  legislative  council  is  granted,  to  be  appointed 
by  the  crown.  For  the  expense  of  government  a  slight  tax  is 
levied  on  liquor;  but  as  the  St.  Pierre  smuggling  is  now  flourish- 
ing, the  tax  does  not  begin  to  meet  the  cost  of  government,  and 
the  difference  is  paid  from  the  imperial  treasury.  However  badly 
the  imperial  government  blundered  with  the  New  England  colo- 
nies, her  treatment  of  Quebec  was  an  object  lesson  in  colonizing 
to  the  world.  Had  she  treated  her  New  England  colonies  half 
as  justly  as  she  treated  Quebec,  British  America  might  to-day 
extend  to  Mexico.  Had  she  treated  Quebec  half  as  unjustly  as 
she  treated  her  own  offspring  of  New  England,  the  United 
States  might  to-day  extend  to  the  Arctic  Circle.  The  man  who 
saved  Canada  to  England,  in  the  first  place  by  wisdom,  in  the 
second  place  by  war,  was  Sir  Guy  Carleton. 

While  the  English  and  French,  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
wrangle  for  power  in  Quebec  there  rages  on  the  frontier  one 
of  the  most  devastating  Indian  wars  known  to  American  history. 
Not  for  nothing  had  Pontiac  drawn  himself  to  his  full  height 
and  defied  Major  Rogers  down  on  Lake  Erie.  From  tribe  to 
tribe  the  lithe  coureurs  ran,  naked  but  for  the  breechcloth, 
painted  as  for  war,  carrying  in  one  hand  the  tomahawk  dipped 
in  blood,  in  the  other  the  wampum  belt  of  purple,  typifying  war. 
The  French  had  deeded  away  the  Indian  lands  to  the  English  ! 
The  news  ran  like  wildfire,  ran  by  moccasin  telegram  from 
Montreal  up  Ottawa  River  to  Michilimackinac,  from  Niagara 
westward  to  Detroit,  and  southward  to  Presqu'  Isle  and  all  that 
chain  of  forts  leading  southwestward  to  the  Mississippi.  Was 
it  a  "Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,"  as  it  has  been  called?  Hardly. 
It  was  more  one  of  those  general  movements  of  unrest,  of  dis- 
content, of  misunderstanding,  that  but  awaits  the  appearance  of 


282  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

a  brave  leader  to  become  a  torrent  of  destruction.  Pontiac,  the 
Ottawa  chief,  was  such  a  leader,  and  to  his  standard  rallied 
Indians  from  Virginia,  from  the  Mississippi,  from  Lake  Supe- 
rior. Of  the  universal  unrest  among  the  Indians  the  English 
were  not  ignorant,  but  they  failed  to  realize  its  significance  ; 
failed,  too,  to  realize  that  the  French  fur  traders,  cast  out  of 
the  western  forts  and  now  roaming  the  wilds,  fanned  the  flame, 
gave  presents  of  gunpowder  and  firearms  to  the  savages,  and 
egged  the  hostiles  on  against  the  new  possessors  of  Canada, 
in  order  to  divert  the  fur  trade  to  French  traders  still  in  Louisi- 
ana. Down  at  Miami,  southwest  of  Lake  Erie,  Ensign  Holmes 
hears  in  March  of  1763  that  the  war  belt  has  been  carried  to 
the  Illinois.  Up  at  Detroit,  in  May,  Pontiac  is  camped  on  the 
east  side  of  the  river  with  eight  hundred  hunters.  Daily  the 
French  farmers,  who  supply  the  fort  with  provisions,  carry  word 
to  Major  Gladwin  that  the  Indians  are  acting  strangely,  holding 
long  and  secret  powwow,  borrowing  files  to  saw  off  the  barrels 
of  their  muskets  short.  A  French  woman,  who  has  visited  the 
Indians  across  the  river  for  a  supply  of  maple  sugar,  comes  to 
Gladwin  on  May  5  with  the  same  story.  From  eight  hundred, 
the  Indians  increase  to  two  thousand.  Old  Catherine,  a  tooth- 
less squaw,  comes  shaking  as  with  the  palsy  to  the  fort,  and 
with  mumbling  words  warns  Gladwin  to  "Beware,  beware!" 
So  does  a  young  girl  whose  fine  eyes  have  caught  the  fancy  of 
Gladwin  himself.  Breaking  out  with  bitter  weeping,  she  covers 
her  head  with  her  shawl  and  bids  her  white  lover  have  a  care 
how  he  meets  Pontiac  in  council.  Gladwin  himself  was  a  sea- 
soned campaigner,  who  had  escaped  the  hurricane  of  death  with 
Braddock  and  had  also  served  under  Amherst  at  Montreal.  In 
his  fort  are  one  hundred  and  twenty  soldiers  and  forty  traders. 
At  the  wharf  lie  the  two  armed  schooners,  Beaver  and.  Gladwin. 
When  Pontiac  comes  with  his  sixty  warriors  Gladwin  is  ready 
for  him.  In  the  council  house  the  warriors  seat  themselves, 
weapons  concealed  under  blankets  ;  but  when  Pontiac  raises 
the  wampum  belt  that  was  to  be  the  signal  for  the  massacre  to 
begin,  Major  Gladwin,  never  moving  his  light  blue  eyes  from 


SIEGE  OF  DETROIT 


283 


the   snaky  gleam  of   the    Indian,   waves  his  hand,  and   at   the 

motion  there  is  a  roll  of  drums,  a  grounding"  of  the  sentry's 

arms,  a  trampling  of  soldiers  outside,  a  rush  as  of  white  men 

marching.    Pontiac  is  dumfounded  and  departs  without  giving 

the  signal.    Back  in  his 

cabin   of    rushes   across 

the  river  he   rages  like 

a   maniac  and   buries   a 

tomahawk  in  the  skull  of 

the  old  squaw  Catherine. 

Monday,  May  9,  at  ten 

o'clock  he  comes  again, 

followed  by  a  rabble  of 

hunters.     The  gates  are 

shut    in    his    face.      He 

shouts  for  admittance. 

The    sentry    opens    the 

wicket   and    in   traders' 

vernacular  bids  him  go 

about    his    business. 

There  is  a  wild  war  yell. 

The   siege   of   Detroit 

begins. 

The  story  of  that  siege 
would  fill  volumes.  For 
fifteen  months  it  lasted, 
the  French  remaining 
neutral,  selling  provi- 
sions to  both  sides,  Glad- 
win defiant  inside  his  palisades,  the  Indians  persistent  as  enraged 
hornets.  Two  English  officers  who  have  been  out  hunting  are 
waylaid,  murdered,  skinned,  the  skin  sewed  into  powder  pouches, 
the  bloody  carcasses  sent  drifting  down  on  the  flood  of  waters 
past  the  fort  walls.  Desperately  in  need  of  provisions  from 
the  French,  Gladwin  consents  to  temporary  truce  while  Cap- 
tain  Campbell   and   others  go   out   to  parley  with  the  Indians. 


SETTLEMENTS  ON   THE   DETROIT   RIVER 


284  CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Gladwin  obtains  cart  loads  of  provisions  during  the  parley,  but 
Pontiac  violates  the  honor  of  war  by  holding  the  messengers 
captive.  Burning  arrows  are  shot  at  the  fort  walls.  Gladwin's 
men  sally  out  by  night,  hack  down  the  orchards  that  conceal 
the  enemy,  burn  all  outbuildings,  and  come  back  without  losing 
a  man.  Nightly,  too,  lapping  the  canoe  noiselessly  across  water 
with  the  palm  of  the  hand,  one  of  the  French  farmers  comes 
with  fresh  provisions.  Gladwin  has  sent  a  secret  messenger,  with 
letter  in  his  powder  pouch,  through  the  lines  of  the  besiegers  to 
Niagara  for  aid.  May  30,  moving  slowly,  all  sails  out,  the  English 
flag  flying  from  the  prow,  comes  a  convoy  of  sailboats  up  the  river. 
Cheer  on  cheer  rent  the  air.  The  soldiers  at  watch  in  the  gal- 
leries inside  the  palisades  tossed  their  caps  overhead,  but  as  the 
ships  came  nearer  the  whites  were  paralyzed  with  horror.  Silence 
froze  the  cheer  on  the  parted  lips.  Indian  warriors  manned  the 
boats.  The  convoy  of  ninety-six  men  had  been  cut  to  pieces, 
only  a  few  soldiers  escaping  back  to  Niagara,  a  few  coming  on, 
compelled  by  the  Indians  to  act  as  rowers.  As  the  boats  passed 
the  fort,  whoops  of  derision,  wild  war  chants,  eldritch  screams, 
rose  from  the  Indians.  One  desperate  white  captive  rose  like  a 
flash  from  his  place  at  the  rowlocks,  caught  his  Indian  captor  by 
the  scuff  of  the  neck  and  threw  him  into  the  river  ;  but  the  red- 
skin grappled  the  other  in  a  grip  of  death.  Turning  over  and 
over,  locked  in  each  other's  arms,  the  hate  of  the  inferno  in  their 
faces,  soldier  and  Indian  swept  down  to  watery  death  in  the  river 
tide.  Taking  advantage  of  the  confusion,  and  under  protection 
of  the  fort  guns,  one  of  the  other  captives  sprang  into  the  river 
and  succeeded  in  swimming  safely  to  the  fort.  Terrible  was  the 
news  he  brought.  All  the  other  forts  south  of  Niagara,  with  the 
exception  of  Fort  Pitt, —  Miami,  St.  Joseph,  Presqu'  Isle,  —  lay 
in  ashes.    From  some  not  a  man  had  escaped  to  tell  the  story. 

That  night  it  was  pitch-dark, — soft,  velvet,  warm  summer  dark- 
ness. From  the  fort  the  soldiers  could  see  the  sixty  captives 
from  the  convoy  burning  outside  at  the  torture  stakes.  Then  as 
gray  morning  came  mangled  corpses  floated  past  on  the  river 
tide.    June  18  another  vessel  glides  up  the  river  with  help,  but 


FIGHT  AT  BLOODY  RUN  285 

the  garrison  is  afraid  of  a  second  disaster,  for  eight  hundred 
warriors  have  lain  in  ambush  along  the  river.  Gladwin  orders  a 
cannon  fired.  The  boat  fires  back  answer,  but  the  wind  falls  and 
she  is  compelled  to  anchor  for  the  night  below  the  fort.  Sixty 
soldiers  armed  to  the  teeth  are  on  board  ;  but  the  captain  is  de- 
termined to  out-trick  the  Indians,  and  he  permits  only  twelve  of 
his  men  at  a  time  on  deck.  Darkness  has  barely  fallen  on  the 
river  before  the  waters  are  alive  with  canoes,  and  naked  warriors 
clamber  to  the  decks  like  scrambling  monkeys,  so  sure  they  have 
outnumbered  their  prey  that  they  forget  all  caution.  At  the  signal 
of  a  hammer  knock  on  deck, —  rap  —  rap  —  rap,  —  three  times 
short  and  sharp,  up  swarm  the  soldiers  from  the  hatchway. 
Fourteen  Indians  dropped  on  the  deck  in  as  many  seconds. 
Others  were  thrown  on  bayonet  points  into  the  river.  It  is  said 
that  after  the  fight  of  a  few  seconds  on  the  ship  the  decks  looked 
like  a  butcher's  shambles.  Finally  the  schooner  anchored  at  De- 
troit, to  the  immense  relief  of  the  beleaguered  garrison.  So  elated 
were  the  English,  one  soldier  dashed  from  a  sally  port  and  scalped 
a  dying  Indian  in  full  view  of  both  sides.  Swift  came  Indian  ven- 
geance. Captain  Campbell,  the  truce  messenger,  was  hacked  to 
pieces.  By  July  28,  Dalzell  has  come  from  Niagara  with  nearly 
two  hundred  men,  including  Rogers,  the  famous  Indian  fighter. 
Both  Dalzell  and  Rogers  are  mad  for  a  rush  from  the  fort  to  deal 
one  crushing  blow  to  the  Indians.  Here  the  one  mistake  of  the 
siege  was  made.  Gladwin  was  against  all  risk,  for  the  Indians  were 
now  dropping  off  to  the  hunting  field,  but  Dalzell  and  Rogers 
were  for  punishing  them  before  they  left.  In  the  midst  of  a  dense 
night  fog  the  English  sallied  from  the  fort  at  two  o'clock  on  the 
31st  of  July  for  Pontiac's  main  camp,  about  two  miles  up  the 
river,  boats  rowing  upstream  abreast  the  marchers.  It  was  hot 
and  sultry.  The  two  hundred  and  fifty  bushrangers  marched  in 
shirt  sleeves,  two  abreast.  A  narrow  footbridge  led  across  a 
brook,  since  known  as  Blood)'  Run,  to  cliffs  behind  which  the 
Indians  were  intrenched.  Along  the  trail  were  the  whitewashed 
cottages  of  the  French  farmers,  who  stared  from  their  windows 
in  their  nightcaps,  amazed  beyond  speech  at  the  rashness  of  the 


286  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

English.  On  a  smaller  scale  it  was  a  repetition  of  Braddock's 
defeat  on  the  Ohio.  Indians  lay  in  ambush  behind  every  house, 
every  shrub,  in  the  long  grass.  They  only  waited  till  Dalzell's 
men  had  crossed  the  bridge  and  were  charging  the  hill  at  a  run. 
Then  the  war  whoop  shrilled  both  to  fore  and  to  rear.  The  Indians 
doubled  up  on  their  trapped  foe  from  both  sides.  Rogers'  Ran- 
gers dashed  for  hiding  in  a  house.  The  drum  beat  retreat.  Under 
cover  of  Rogers'  shots  from  one  side,  shots  from  the  boats  on 
the  other,  Dalzell's  men  escaped  at  a  panic  run  back  over  the 
trail  with  a  loss  of  some  sixty  dead.  In  September  came  more 
ships  with  more  men,  again  to  be  ambushed  at  the  narrows,  and 
again  to  reach  Detroit,  as  the  old  record  says,  "  bloody  as  a 
butcher's  shop."  So  the  siege  dragged  on  for  more  than  a  year 
at  Detroit.  Winter  witnessed  a  slight  truce  to  fighting,  for  star- 
vation drove  the  Indians  to  the  hunting  field ;  but  May  saw  Pon- 
tiac  again  encamped  under  the  walls  of  Detroit  till  word  came 
from  the  French  on  the  lower  Mississippi  in  October,  definitely 
and  for  all,  they  would  not  join  the  Indians.  Then  Pontiac  knew 
his  cause  was  lost. 

Up  at  Michilimackinac  similar  scenes  were  enacted.  Major 
Etherington  and  Captain  Leslie  had  some  thirty-five  soldiers. 
There  were  also  hosts  of  traders  outside  the  walls,  among  whom 
was  Alexander  Henry  of  Montreal.  Word  had  come  of  Pontiac 
at  Detroit,  but  Etherington  did  not  realize  that  the  uprising 
was  general.  June  4  was  the  King's  birthday.  Shops  had  been 
closed.  Flags  blew  above  the  fort.  Gates  were  wide  open. 
Squaws  with  heads  under  shawls  sat  hunched  around  the  house 
steps,  with  that  concealed  beneath  their  shawls  which  the  Eng- 
lish did  not  guess.  All  the  men  except  Henry,  who  was  writing 
letters,  and  some  Frenchmen,  who  understood  the  danger  signs, 
had  gone  outside  the  gates  to  watch  a  fast  and  furious  game  of 
lacrosse.  Again  and  again  the  ball  came  bounding  towards  the 
fort  gates,  only  to  be  whisked  to  the  other  end  of  the  field  by  a 
deft  toss,  followed  by  the  swift  runners.  No  one  was  louder  in 
applause  than  Etherington.  The  officers  were  completely  off 
guard.    Suddenly  the  crowds  swayed,  gave  way,  opened;  .   .  . 


MICHILIMACKINAC  FALLS  287 

and  down  the  field  towards  the  fort  gates  surged  the  players. 
A  dexterous  pitch  !  The  ball  was  inside  the  fort.  After  it  dashed 
the  Indians.  In  a  flash  weapons  were  grasped  from  the  shawls 
of  the  squaws.  Musket  and  knife  did  the  rest.  When  Henry- 
heard  the  war  whoop  and  looked  from  a  window  he  saw  Indian 
warriors  bending  to  drink  the  blood  of  hearts  that  were  yet  warm. 
For  two  days  Henry  lived  in  the  rubbish  heap  of  the  attic  in 
the  house  of  Langlade,  a  pioneer  of  Wisconsin.  Of  the  whites 
at  Michilimackinac  only  twenty  escaped  death,  and  they  were 
carried  prisoners  to  the  Lower  Country  for  ransom. 

From  Virginia  to  Lake  Superior  such  was  the  Indian  war 
known  as  Pontiac's  Campaign.  Fort  Pitt  held  out  like  Detroit. 
Niagara  was  too  strong  for  assault,  but  in  September  twenty- 
four  soldiers,  who  had  been  protecting  portage  past  the  falls, 
were  waylaid  and  driven  over  the  precipice  at  the  place  called 
Devil's  Hole.  More  soldiers  sent  to  the  rescue  met  like  fate, 
horses  and  wagons  being  stampeded  over  the  rocks,  seventy  men 
in  all  being  hurled  to  death  in  the  wild  canyon. 

Amherst,  who  was  military  commander  at  this  time,  was 
driven  nearly  out  of  his  senses.  A  foe  like  the  French,  who 
would  stand  and  do  battle,  he  could  fight ;  but  this  phantom  foe, 
that  vanished  like  mist  through  the  woods,  baffled  the  English 
soldier.  In  less  than  six  months  two  thousand  whites  had  been 
slain  ;  and  Amherst  could  not  even  find  his  foe,  let  alone  strike 
him.  ''■Can  we  not  inoculate  them  with  smallpox,  or  set  blood- 
hounds to  track  them  f"  he  writes  distractedly. 

By  the  summer  of  1764  the  English  had  taken  the  war  path. 
Bradstreet  was  to  go  up  the  lakes  with  twelve  hundred  men, 
Bouquet,  with  like  forces,  to  follow  the  old  Pennsylvania  road  to 
the  Ohio,  both  generals  to  unite  somewhere  south  of  Lake  Erie. 
Of  Bradstreet  the  least  said  the  better.  He  had  done  well  in 
the  great  war  when  he  captured  Fort  Frontenac  almost  without 
a  blow  ;  but  now  he  strangely  played  the  fool.  He  seemed  to 
think  that  peace,  peace  at  any  price,  was  the  object,  whereas 
peace  that  is  not  a  victory  is  worthless  with  the  Indian.  Depu- 
ties met  him  on  the  12th  of  August  near  Presqu'  Isle,  Lake  Erie. 


288  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

They  carried  no  wampum  belts  and  were  really  spies.  Without 
demanding  reparation,  without  a  word  as  to  restoring  harried 
captives,  without  hostages  for  good  conduct,  Bradstreet  entered 
into  a  fool's  peace  with  his  foes,  proceeded  up  to  Detroit,  and 
was  back  at  Niagara  by  winter ;  though  he  must  have  realized 
the  worthlessness  of  the  campaign  when  his  messengers  sent  to 
the  Illinois  were  ambushed. 

When  Bouquet  heard  of  the  sham  peace  he  was  furious  and 
repudiated  Bradstreet's  treaty  in  toto.  Bouquet  was  a  veteran  of 
the  great  war,  and  knew  bushfighting  from  seven  years'  experi- 
ence on  Pennsylvania  frontiers.  Slowly,  with  his  fifteen  hundred 
rangers  and  five  hundred  Highlanders,  express  riders  keeping 
the  trail  open  from  fort  to  fort,  scouts  to  fore,  Bouquet  moved 
along  the  old  army  trail  used  by  Forbes  to  reach  P"ort  Pitt. 
Friendly  Indians  had  been  warned  to  keep  green  branches  as 
signals  in  the  muzzles  of  their  guns.  All  others  were  to  be  shot 
without  mercy.  Indians  vanished  before  his  march  like  mist 
before  the  sun.  August  5  found  Bouquet  south  of  Fort  Pitt  at  a 
place  known  as  Bushy  Run.  The  scouts  had  gone  ahead  to  pre- 
pare nooning  for  the  army  at  the  Run.  In  seven  hours  the  men 
had  marched  seventeen  miles  spite  of  sweltering  heat ;  but  at 
one,  just  as  the  thirsty  columns  were  nearing  the  rest  place,  the 
crack —  crack  —  crack  of  rifle  shots  to  the  fore  set  every  man's 
blood  jumping.  From  quick  march  they  broke  to  a  run,  priming 
guns,  ball  in  mouth  as  they  ran.  A  moment  later  the  old  trick 
of  Braddock's  ambush  was  being  repeated,  but  this  time  the 
Indians  were  dealing  with  a  seasoned  man.  Bouquet  swung  his 
lighters  in  a  circle  round  the  stampeding  horses  and  provision 
wagons.  The  heat  was  terrific,  the  men  almost  mad  with  thirst, 
the  horses  neighing  and  plunging  and  breaking  away  to  the 
woods  ;  and  the  army  stood,  a  red-coated,  tartan-plaid  target  for 
invisible  foes  !  By  this  time  the  men  were  fighting  as  Indians 
fight  — breaking  ranks,  jumping  from  tree  to  tree.  It  is  n't  easy 
to  keep  men  standing  as  targets  when  they  can't  get  at  the  foe  ; 
but  Bouquet,  riding  from  place  to  place,  kept  his  men  in  hand  till 
darkness  screened  them.    Sixty  had  fallen.    A  circular  barricade 


HOW   BOUQUET  WINS  VICTORY 


289 


was  built  of  flour  bags.  Inside  this  the  wounded  were  laid,  and 
the  army  camped  without  water.  The  agonies  of  that  night  need 
not  be  told.  Here  the  neighing  of  horses  would  bring  down  a 
clatter  of  bullets  aimed  in  the  dark ;  and  the  groans  of  the 
wounded,  trampled  by  the  stampeding  cavalcade,  would  mingle 
with  the  screams  of  terror  from  the  horses.  The  night  continued 
hot  almost  as  day  in  the  sultry  forest,  and  the  thirst  with  both 
man  and  beast  became 
anguish.  Another  such 
day  and  another  such 
night,  and  Bouquet  could 
foresee  his  fate  would  be 
worse  than  Braddock's. 
Passino;  from  man  to  man, 
he  gave  the  army  their 
instructions  for  the  next 
day.  They  would  form  in 
three  platoons,  with  the 
center  battalion  advanced 
to  the  fore,  as  if  to  lead 
attack.  Suddenly  the 
center  was  to  feign  defeat 
and  turn  as  if  in  panic 
flight.  It  was  to  be 
guessed  that  the  Indians 
would  pursue  headlong. 
Instantly  the  flank  bat- 
talions were  to  sweep  through  the  woods  in  wide  circle  and 
close  in  on  the  rear  of  the  savages.  Then  the  fleeing  center  was 
to  turn.  The  savages  would  be  surrounded.  Daybreak  came 
with  a  cracking  of  shots  from  ambush.  Officers  and  men  carried 
out  instructions  exactly  as  Bouquet  had  planned.  At  ten  o'clock 
the  center  column  broke  ranks,  wavered,  turned,  .  .  .  fled  in 
wild  panic  !  With  the  whooping  of  a  wolf  pack  in  full  cry,  the 
savages  burst  from  ambush  in  pursuit.  The  sides  deployed. 
A  moment   later  the  center   had    turned   to  fight   the  pursuer, 


BOUQUET 


290  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

and  the  Highlanders  broke  from  the  woods,  yelling  their  slogan, 
with  broadswords  cutting  a  terrible  hand-to-hand  swath.  Sixty 
Indians  were  slashed  to  death  in  as  many  seconds.  Though  the 
British  lost  one  hundred  and  fifteen,  killed  and  wounded,  the 
Indians  were  in  full  flight,  blind  terror  at  their  heels.  The  way 
was  now  open  to  Fort  Pitt,  but  Bouquet  did  not  dally  inside  the 
palisades.  On  down  the  Ohio  he  pursued  the  panic-stricken 
savages,  pausing  neither  for  deputies  nor  reinforcements.  At 
Muskingum  Creek  the  Indians  sent  back  the  old  men  to  sue, 
sue  abjectedly,  for  peace  at  any  cost. 

Bouquet  met  them  with  the  stern  front  that  never  fails  to  win 
respect.  They  need  not  palm  off  their  lie  that  the  fault  lay  with 
the  foolish  young  warriors.  If  the  old  chiefs  would  not  control 
the  young  braves,  then  the  whole  tribe,  the  whole  Indian  race, 
must  pay  the  penalty.  In  terror  the  deputies  hung  their  heads. 
He  would  not  even  discuss  the  terms  of  peace,  Bouquet  declared, 
till  the  Indians  restored  every  captive,  —  man,  woman,  and  child, 
even  the  child  of  Indian  parentage  born  in  captivity.  The  captives 
must  be  given  suitable  clothing,  horses,  and  presents.  Twelve 
days  only  would  he  permit  them  to  gather  the  captives.  If  man, 
woman,  or  child  were  lacking  on  the  twelfth  day,  he  would  pur- 
sue them  and  punish  them  to  the  uttermost  ends  of  earth. 

The  Indians  were  dumfounded.  These  were  not  soft  words. 
Not  thus  had  the  French  spoken,  with  the  giving  of  manifold 
presents.  But  powder  was  exhausted.  No  more  was  coming  from 
the  French  traders  of  the  Mississippi.  Winter  was  approaching, 
and  the  Indians  must  hunt  or  starve.  Again  the  coureurs  are 
sent  spurring  the  woods  from  tribe  to  tribe  with  wampum  belts, 
but  this  time  the  belts  are  the  white  bands  of  peace.  While 
Bouquet  waits  he  sends  back  over  the  trail  for  hospital  nurses  to 
receive  the  captives,  and  the  army  is  set  knocking  up  rude  bar- 
racks of  log  and  thatch  in  the  wilderness.  Then  the  captives 
begin  to  come.  It  is  a  scene  for  the  brush  of  artist,  for  all 
frontiersmen  who  have  lost  friends  have  rallied  to  Bouquet's 
camp,  hoping  against  hope  and  afraid  to  hope.  There  is  the 
mother,  whose  infant  child  has  been  snatched  from  her  arms  in 


RETURN  OF  CAPTIVES 


291 


some  frontier  attack,  now  scanning  the  lines  as  they  come  in,  mad 
with  hope  and  fear.  There  is  the  husband,  whose  wife  has  been 
torn  away  to  some  savage's  tepee,  searching,  searching,  search- 
ing among  the  sad,  wild-eyed,  ill-clad  rabble  for  one  with  some 
resemblance  to  the  wife 
he  loved.  There  is  the 
father  seeking  lost 
daughters  and  afraid  of 
what  he  may  find  ;  and 
there  are  the  captives 
themselves,  some  of  the 
women  demented  from 
the  abuse  they  have  re- 
ceived. England  may 
have  spent  her  millions 
to  protect  her  colonies, 
but  she  never  spent  in 
anguish  what  these  rude 
frontiersmen  suffered  at 
Bouquet's  camp. 

So  ended  what  is  known 
as  the  Pontiac  War.  Up 
at  Detroit  in  1765  Pon- 
tiac, in  council  with  the 
whites,  explains  that  he 
has  listened  to  bad  ad- 
vice, but  now  his  heart 
is  right.  "  Father,  you 
have    stopped   the    rum 

barrel  while  we  talked,"  he  says  grimly;  "as  our  business  is 
finished,  we  request  that  you  open  the  barrel,  that  we  may  drink 
and  be  merry." 

Not  a  very  heroic  curtain  fall  to  a  dramatic  life.  But  pause  a 
bit  :  the  Pontiac  War  was  the  last  united  stand  of  a  doomed 
race  against  the  advance  of  the  conquering  alien  ;  and  the  Indian 
is  defeated,  and  he  knows  it,  and  he  acknowledges  it,  and  he 


RETURN    OB'    THE    ENGLISH    CAPTIVES 
(From  a  contemporary  print) 


292  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

drowns  his  despair  in  a  vice,  and  so  he  passes  down  the  Long 
Trail  of  time  with  his  face  to  the  west,  doomed,  hopeless, 
pushed  westward  and   ever  west. 

Pontiac  goes  down  the  Mississippi  to  his  friends,  the  French 
fur  traders  of  St.  Louis.  One  morning  in  1767,  after  a  drinking 
bout,  he  is  found  across  the  river,  lying  in  camp,  with  his  skull 
split  to  the  neck.  By  the  sword  he  had  lived,  by  the  sword  he 
perished.  Was  the  murder  the  result  of  a  drunken  quarrel,  or  did 
some  frenzied  frontiersman  with  deathless  woes  bribe  the  hand 
of  the  assassin  ?  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  unknown,  and  Pon- 
tiac's  death  remains  a  theme  for  fiction. 

What  with  struggles  for  power  and  Indian  wars,  one  might 
think  that  the  few  hundred  English  colonists  of  Quebec  and 
Montreal  had  all  they  could  do.  Not  so  :  their  quarrels  with 
the  French  Catholics  and  fights  with  the  Indians  are  merely 
incidental  to  the  main  aim  of  their  lives,  to  the  one  object  that 
has  brought  them  stampeding  to  Canada  as  to  a  new  gold  field, 
namely,  quick  way  to  wealth  ;  and  the  only  quick  way  to  wealth 
was  by  the  fur  trade.  In  the  wilderness  of  the  Up  Country  wan- 
der some  two  or  three  thousand  cast-off  wood  rovers  of  the  old 
French  fur  trade.  As  the  prodigals  come  down  the  Ottawa, 
down  the  Detroit,  down  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  English  and 
Scotch  merchants  of  Montreal  and  Quebec  meet  them.  Mighty 
names  those  merchants  have  in  history  now,  —  McGillivrays  and 
MacKenzies  and  McGills  and  Henrys  and  MacLeods  and  Mac- 
Gregors  and  Ogilvies  and  MacTavishes  and  Camerons,  —  but  at 
this  period  of  the  game  the  most  of  them  were  what  we  to-day 
would  call  petty  merchants  or  peddlers.  In  their  storehouses  — 
small,  one-story,  frame  affairs  —  were  packed  goods  for  trade. 
With  these  goods  they  quickly  outfitted  the  French  bushrover 
—  $3000  worth  to  a  canoe  —  and  packed  the  fellow  back  to  the 
wilderness  to  trade  on  shares  before  any  rival  firm  could  hire  him. 
Within  five  years  of  Wolfe's  victory  in  1759  all  the  French 
bushrovers  of  the  Up  Country  had  been  reengaged  by  merchants 
of  Montreal  and  Quebec. 


THE   PEDDLERS 


293 


Then  imperceptible  changes  came, — the  changes  that  work 
so  silently  they  are  like  destiny.  Because  it  is  unsafe  to  let 
the  rascal  bushrovers  and  voyageurs  go  off  by  themselves  with 
$3000  worth  to  the  canoe  load,  the  merchants  began  to  accom- 
pany them  westward.  "  Bourgeois,"  the  voyageurs  call  their  out- 
fitters. Then,  because  success  in  fur  trade  must  be  kept  secret, 
the  merchants  cease  to  have  their  men  come  down  to  Montreal. 
They  meet   them  with   the  goods   halfway,   at   La  Verend rye's 


MONTREAL 
(From  a  contemporary  print) 

old  stamping  ground  on  Lake  Superior,  first  at  the  place  called 
Grand  Portage,  then,  when  the  LTnited  States  boundary  is  changed 
in  1783,  at  Kaministiquia,  or  modern  Fort  William,  named  after 
William  McGillivray.  Pontiac's  War  puts  a  stop  to  the  new 
trade,  but  by  1766  the  merchants  are  west  again.  Henry  goes 
up  the  Saskatchewan  to  the  Forks,  and  comes  back  with  such 
wealth  of  furs  he  retires  a  rich  magnate  of  Montreal.  The 
Frobisher  brothers  strike  for  new  hunting  ground.  So  do  Peter 
Pond  and  Bostonnais  Pangman,  and  the  MacKenzies,  Alexander 


294  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

and  Roderick.  Instead  of  following  up  the  Saskatchewan,  they 
strike  from  Lake  Winnipeg  northward  for  Churchill  River  and 
Athabasca,  and  they  bring  out  furs  that  transform  those  ped- 
dlers into  merchant  princes.  A  little  later  the  chief  buyer  of 
the  Montreal  furs  is  one  John  Jacob  Astor  of  New  York.  Then 
another  change.  Rivalry  hurts  fur  trade.  Especially  do  differ- 
ent prices  demoralize  the  Indians.  The  Montreal  merchants  pool 
their  capital  and  become  known  as  the  Northwest  Fur  Company. 
They  now  hire  their  voyageurs  outright  on  a  salary.  No  man  is 
paid  less  than  what  would  be  $500  in  modern  money,  with 
board  ;  and  any  man  may  rise  to  be  clerk,  trader,  wintering 
partner,  with  shares  worth  ^800  ($4000),  that  bring  dividends 
of  two  and  three  hundred  per  cent.  The  petty  merchants  whom 
Murray  and  Carleton  despised  became  in  twenty  years  the  opu- 
lent aristocracy  of  Montreal,  holding  the  most  of  the  public 
offices,  dominating  the  government,  filling  the  judgeships,  and 
entertaining  with  a  lavish  hospitality  that  put  vice-regal  splen- 
dor in  the  shade.  The  Beaver  Club  is  the  great  rendezvous  of 
the  Montreal  partners.  "Fortitude  in  Distress  "  is  the  motto 
and  lords  of  the  ascendant  is  their  practice.  No  man,  neither  gov- 
ernor nor  judge,  may  ignore  these  Nor'westers,  and  it  may  be 
added  they  are  a  law  unto  themselves.  One  example  will  suffice. 
A  French  merchant  of  Montreal  took  it  into  his  head  to  have  a 
share  of  this  wealth-giving  trade.  He  was  advised  to  pool  his  in- 
terests with  the  Nor'westers,  and  he  foolishly  ignored  the  advice. 
In  camp  at  Grand  Portage  on  Lake  Superior  he  is  told  all  the  coun- 
try hereabout  belongs  to  the  Nor'westers,  and  he  must  decamp. 

"  Show  me  proofs  this  country  is  yours,"  he  answers.  "  Show 
me  the  title  deed  and  I  shall  decamp." 

Next  night  a  band  of  Nor'westers,  voyageurs  well  plied  with 
rum,  came  down  the  strand  to  the  intruder's  tents.  They  cut 
his  tents  to  ribbons,  scatter  his  goods  to  the  four  winds,  and 
beat  his  voyageurs  into  insensibility. 

"  Voila  !    there  are  our  proofs,"  they  say. 

The  French  merchant  hastens  down  to  Montreal  to  bring  law- 
suit, but  the  judges,  you  must  remember,  are  shareholders  in  the 


METHODS  OF  NOR'WESTERS  295 

Northwest  Company,  and  many  of  the  Legislative  Council  are 
Nor'westers.  What  with  real  delays  and  sham  delays  and  put- 
offs  and  legal  fees,  justice  is  a  bit  tardy.  While  the  case  is 
pending  the  French  merchant  tries  again.  This  time  he  is  not 
molested  at  Fort  William.  They  let  him  proceed  on  his  way  up 
the  old  trail  to  Lake  of  the  Woods,  the  trail  found  by  La  Veren- 
drye  ;  and  halfway  through  the  wilderness,  where  the  cataract 
offers  only  one  path  for  portage,  the  Frenchman  finds  Nor'- 
westers building  a  barricade  ;  he  tears  it  down.  They  build 
another ;  he  tears  that  down.  They  build  a  third  ;  fast  as  he 
tears  down,  they  build  up.  He  must  either  go  back  baffled  by 
these  suave,  smiling,  lawless  rivals,  or  fight  on  the  spot  to  the 
death  ;  but  there  is  neither  glory  nor  wealth  being  killed  in  the 
wilderness,  where  not  so  much  as  the  sands  of  the  shore  will  tell 
the  true  story  of  the  crime.  So  the  French  merchant  compro- 
mises, sells  out  to  the  Nor'westers  at  cost  plus  carriage,  and 
retires  to  the  St.  Lawrence  cursing  British  justice. 

It  may  be  guessed  that  the  sudden  eruption  of  "  the  peddlers," 
these  bush  banditti,  these  Scotch  soldiers  of  fortune  with  French 
bullies  for  fighters,  roused  the  ancient  and  honorable  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  from  its  half-century  slumber  of  peace.  Anthony 
Hendry,  who  had  gone  up  the  Saskatchewan  far  as  the  Black- 
foot  country  of  the  foothills,  they  had  dismissed  as  a  liar  in  the 
fifties  because  he  had  reported  that  he  had  seen  Indians  on  Jiorse- 
back,  whereas  the  sleepy  factors  of  the  bay  ports  knew  very 
well  they  never  saw  any  kind  of  Indians  except  Indians  in 
canoes  ;  but  now  in  the  sixties  it  is  noted  by  the  company  that 
not  so  many  furs  are  coming  clown  from  the  Up  Country.  It  is 
voted  "  the  French  Canadian  peddlers  of  Montreal  "  be  notified 
of  the  company's  exclusive  monopoly  to  the  trade  of  these  regions. 
One  Findley  is  sent  to  Quebec  to  look  after  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company's  rights  ;  but  while  the  English  company  talks  about 
its  rights,  the  Nor'westers  go  in  the  field  and  take  them. 

The  English  company  rubs  its  eyes  and  sits  up  and  scratches 
its  heavy  head,  and  passes  an  order  that  Mr.  Moses  Norton,  chief 


296  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

factor  of  Churchill,  send  Mr.  Samuel  Ilearne  to  explore  the  Up 
Country.  Hearne  has  heard  of  Far-Away-Metal  River,  far  enough 
away  in  all  conscience  from  the  Canadian  peddlers;  and  thither 
in  December,  1770,  he  finds  his  way,  after  two  futile  attempts  to 
set  out.  Matonabbee,  great  chief  of  the  Chippewyans,  is  his 
guide,  —  Matonabbee,  who  brings  furs  from  the  Athabasca,  and 
is  now  accompanied  by  a  regiment  of  wives  to  act  as  beasts  of 
burden  in  the  sledge  traces,  camp  servants,  and  cooks.  Hearne 
sets  out  in  midwinter  in  order  to  reach  the  Coppermine  River 
in  summer,  by  which  he  can  descend  to  the  Arctic  in  canoes. 
Storm  or  cold,  bog  or  rock,  Matonabbee  keeps  fast  pace,  so  fast 
he  reaches  the  great  caribou  traverse  before  provisions  have 
dwindled  and  in  time  for  the  spring  hunt.  Here  all  the  Indian 
hunters  of  the  north  gather  twice  a  year  to  hunt  the  vast  herds 
of  caribou  going  to  the  seashore  for  summer,  back  to  the  Up 
Country  for  the  winter,  herds  in  countless  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands, such  multitudes  the  clicking  of  the  horns  sounds  like  wind 
in  a  leafless  forest,  the  tramp  of  the  hoof s  like  galloping  cavalry. 
Store  of  meat  is  laid  up  for  Hearne's  voyage  by  Matonabbee's 
Indians  ;  and  a  band  of  warriors  joins  the  expedition  to  go  down 
Coppermine  River.  If  Hearne  had  known  Indian  customs  as 
well  as  he  knew  the  fur  trade,  he  would  have  known  that  it  boded 
no  good  when  Matonabbee  ordered  the  women  to  wait  for  his 
return  in  the  Athabasca  country  of  the  west.  Absence  of  women 
on  the  march  meant  only  one  of  two  things,  a  war  raid  or  hunt, 
and  which  it  was  soon  enough  Hearne  learned.  They  had  come 
at  last,  on  July  12,  1 77 1 ,  on  Coppermine  River,  a  mean  little 
stream  flowing  over  rocky  bed  in  the  Barren  Lands  of  the  Little 
Sticks  (Trees),  when  Hearne  noticed,  just  above  a  cataract,  the 
domed  tepee  tops  of  an  Eskimo  camp.  It  was  night,  but  as  bright 
as  day  in  the  long  light  of  the  North.  Instantly,  before  Hearne 
could  stop  them,  his  Indians  had  stripped  as  for  war,  and  fell 
upon  the  sleeping  Eskimo  in  ruthless  massacre.  Men  were 
brained  as  they  dashed  from  the  domed  tents,  women  speared 
as  they  slept,  children  dispatched  with  less  thought  than  the 
white  man  would  give  to  the  killing  of  a  fly.    In  vain   Hearne, 


TRADERS  INVADE  THE  UP  COUNTRY 


297 


with  tears  in  his  eyes,  begged  the  Indians  to  stop.  They  laughed 
him  to  scorn,  and  doubtless  wondered  where  he  thought  they 
yearly  got  the  ten  thousand  beaver  pelts  brought  to  Churchill. 
A  few  days  later,  July  17,  i//i,  Hearne  stood  on  the  shores  of 
the  Arctic,  heaving  to  the  tide  and  afloat  with  ice  ;  but  the  hor- 
rors of  the  massacre  had  robbed  him  of  an  explorer's  exultation, 
though  he  was  first  of  pathfinders  to  reach  the  Arctic  overland. 
Matonabbee  led  Hearne 
back  to  Churchill  in  June 
of  1772  by  a  wide  west- 
ward circle  through  the 
Athabasca  Bear  Lake 
Country,  which  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  people  thus 
discovered  only  a  few 
years  before  the  Nor'- 
westers  came. 

No  longer  dare  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company 
ignore  the  Up  Country. 
Hearne  is  sent  to  the 
Saskatchewan  to  build 
Fort  Cumberland,  and 
Matthew  Cocking  is  dis- 
patched to  the  country 
of  the  Blackfeet,  modern 
Alberta,  to  beat  up  trade, 
where  his  French  voyageur,  Louis  Primeau,  deserts  him  bag 
and  baggage,  to  carry  the  Hudson's  Bay  furs  off  to  the  Nor'- 
westers.  No  longer  does  the  English  company  slumber  on  the 
shores  of  its  frozen  sea.  Yearly  are  voyageurs  sent  inland, — 
"  patroons  of  the  woods,"  given  bounty  to  stay  in  the  wilds, 
hi rino;  any  trade  from   the  Nor' westers. 


SAMUEL    HEARNE 


The  Quebec  Act,  guaranteeing  the  rights  of  the  French  Ca- 
nadians, had  barely  been  put  in  force  before  the  Congress  of  the 


298  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

revolting  English  colonies  sent  up  proclamations  to  be  posted 
on  the  church  doors  of  the  parishes,  calling  on  the  French  to 
throw  off  the  British  yoke,  to  join  the  American  colonies,  "  to 
seize  the  opportunity  to  be  free."  Unfortunately  for  this  allur- 
ing invitation,  Congress  had  but  a  few  weeks  previously  put  on 
record  its  unsparing  condemnation  of  the  Quebec  Act.  Inspired 
by  those  New  Englanders  who,  for  a  century,  had  suffered  from 
French  raids,  Congress  had  expressed  its  verdict  on  the  privi- 
leges granted  to  Quebec  in  these  words :"  Nor  can  zvc  suppress 
our  astonishment  that  a  British  Parliament  should  establish  a 
religion  that  has  drenched  your  island  [England]  in  bloody 
This  declaration  was  the  cardinal  blunder  of  Congress  as  far 
as  Canada  was  concerned.  Of  the  merits  of  the  quarrel  the 
simple  French  habitant  knew  nothing.  He  did  what  his  cure 
told  him  to  do  ;  and  the  Catholic  Church  would  not  risk  cast- 
ing in  its  lot  with  a  Congress  that  declared  its  religion  had 
drenched  England  in  blood.  English  inhabitants  of  Montreal 
and  Quebec,  who  had  flocked  to  Canada  from  the  New  Eng- 
land colonies,  were  far  readier  to  listen  to  the  invitation  of 
Congress  than  were  the   French. 

Governor  Carleton  had  fewer  than  800  troops,  and  naturally 
the  French  did  not  rally  as  volunteers  in  the  impending  war 
between  England  and  her  English  colonies.  Should  the  Con- 
gress troops  invade  Canada?  The  question  was  hanging  fire 
when  Ethan  Allen,  with  his  two  hundred  Green  Mountain  boys 
of  Vermont,  marched  across  to  Lake  Champlain  in  May  of 
1 77 5,  hobnobbed  with  the  guards  of  Ticonderoga,  who  drank 
not  wisely  but  too  well,  then  rowed  by  night  across  the  narrows 
and  knocked  at  the  wicket  beside  the  main  gate.  The  sleepy 
guards,  not  yet  sober  from  the  night's  carouse,  admitted  the 
Vermonters  as  friends.  In  rushed  the  whole  two  hundred.  In  a 
trice  the  Canadian  garrison  of  forty-four  were  all  captured  and 
Allen  was  thundering  on  the  chamber  door  of  La  Place,  the 
commandant.  It  was  five  in  the  morning.  La  Place  sprang  up 
in  his  nightshirt  and  demanded  in  whose  name  he  was  ordered 
to  surrender.    Ethan  Allen  answered  in  words  that  have  gone 


DISAFFECTION   IN   CANADA  299 

down  to  history,  "///  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah  and  the 
Continental  Congress."  Later  fell  Crown  Point.  So  began  the 
war  with  Canada  in  the  great  Revolution. 

And  now,  from  May  to  September,  Arnold's  Green  Mountain 
boys  sweep  from  Lake  Champlain  down  the  Richelieu  to  the  St. 
Lawrence,  as  Iberville's  bold  bushrovers  long  ago  swept  through 
these  woods.  However,  the  American  rovers  take  no  permanent 
occupation  of  the  different  forts  on  the  falls  of  the  Richelieu 
River,  preferring  rather  to  overrun  the  parishes,  dispatching 
secret  spies  and  waiting  for  the  habitants  to  rally.  And  they 
came  once  too  often,  once  too  far,  these  bold  banditti  of  the 
wilderness,  clad  in  buckskin,  musket  over  shoulder,  coonskin 
cap  !  Montreal  is  so  full  of  spies,  so  full  of  friendlies,  so  full  of 
Bostonnais  in  sympathy  with  the  revolutionists,  that  Allen  feels 
safe  in  paddling  across  the  St.  Lawrence  one  September  morning 
to  the  Montreal  side  with  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  men.  Mon- 
treal has  grown  in  these  ten  years  to  a  city  of  some  twelve  thou- 
sand, but  the  gates  are  fast  shut  against  the  American  scouts ;  and 
while  Allen  waits  in  some  barns  of  the  suburbs,  presto  !  out  sallies 
Major  Carden  with  twice  as  many  men  armed  to  the  teeth,  who 
assault  the  barns  at  a  rush.  Five  Americans  drop  at  the  first  crack 
of  the  rifles.  The  Canadians  are  preparing  to  set  fire  to  the  barns. 
Allen's  men  will  be  picked  off  as  they  rush  from  the  smoke.  Wisely, 
he  saves  his  Green  Mountain  boys  by  surrender.  Thirty-five  capit- 
ulate. The  rest  have  escaped  through  the  woods.  Carleton  re- 
fuses to  acknowledge  the  captives  as  prisoners  of  war.  He  claps 
irons  on  their  hands  and  irons  on  their  feet  and  places  them  on  a 
vessel  bound  for  England  to  be  treated  as  rebels  to  the  crown.  It 
is  said  those  of  Allen's  men  who  deserted  were  French  Canadians 
in  disguise  —  which  may  explain  why  Carleton  made  such  severe 
example  of  his  captives  and  at  once  purged  Montreal  of  the  dis- 
affected by  compelling  all  who  would  not  take  arms  to  leave. 

Carleton's  position  was  chancy  enough  in  all  conscience.  The 
habitants  were  wavering.  They  refused  point-blank  to  serve 
as  volunteers.  They  supplied  the  invaders  with  provisions. 
Spies  were  everywhere.    Practically   no  help   could  come  from 


300  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

England  till  spring,  and  scouts  brought  word  that  two  American 
armies  were  now  marching  in  force  on  Canada, — one  by  way 
of  the  Richelieu,  twelve  hundred  strong,  led  by  Richard  Mont- 
gomery of  New  York,  directed  against  Montreal ;  the  other  by 
way  of  the  Kennebec,  with  fifteen  hundred  men  under  Benedict 
Arnold,  to  attack  Quebec.  Carleton  is  at  Montreal.  He  rushes 
his  troops,  six  hundred  and  ninety  out  of  eight  hundred  men, 
up  the  Richelieu  to  hold  the  forts  at  Chambly  and  St. John's 
against  Montgomery's  advance. 

Half  September  and  all  October  Montgomery  camps  on  the 
plains  before  Fort  St.  John's,  his  rough  soldiers  clad  for  the 
most  part  in  their  shirt  sleeves,  trousers,  and  coon  cap,  with 
badges  of  "  Liberty  or  Death"  worked  in  the  cap  bands,  or 
sprigs  of  green  put  in  their  hats,  in  lieu  of  soldier's  uniform. 
Inside  the  fort,  Major  Preston,  the  English  commander,  has 
almost  seven  hundred  men,  with  ample  powder.  It  is  plain  to 
Montgomery  that  he  can  win  the  fort  in  only  one  of  two  ways, 
—  shut  off  provisions  and  starve  the  garrison  out,  or  get  posses- 
sion of  heavy  artillery  to  batter  down  the  walls.  It  is  said  that 
fortune  favors  the  dauntless.  So  it  was  with  Montgomery,  for 
he  was  enabled  to  besiege  the  fort  in  both  ways.  Carleton 
had  rushed  a  Colonel  McLean  to  the  relief  of  St. John's  with 
a  force  of  French  volunteers,  but  the  French  deserted  en  masse. 
McLean  was  left  without  any  soldiers.  This  cut  off  St.  John's 
from  supply  of  provisions.  At  Chambly  Fort  was  a  Major  Stop- 
ford  with  eighty  men  and  a  supply  of  heavy  artillery.  Mont- 
gomery sent  a  detachment  to  capture  Chambly  for  the  sake  of 
its  artillery.  Stopford  surrendered  to  the  Americans  without  a 
blow,  and  the  heavy  cannon  were  forthwith  trundled  along  the 
river  to  Montgomery  at  St.  John's.  Preston  sends  frantic  appeal 
to  Carleton  for  help.  He  has  reduced  his  garrison  to  half  rations, 
to  quarter  rations,  to  very  nearly  no  rations  at  all  !  Carleton 
sends  back  secret  express.  He  can  send  no  help.  He  has  no 
more  men.  Montgomery  tactfully  lets  the  message  pass  in. 
After  siege  of  forty-five  days,  Preston  surrenders  with  all  the 
honors  of  war,  his  six  hundred  and  eighty-eight  men  marching 


CANADA  INVADED 


301 


out,  arms  reversed,   and  going  aboard   Montgomery's  ships  to 
proceed  as  prisoners  up  Lake  Champlain. 

The  way  is  now  open  to  Montreal.  Benedict  Arnold,  mean- 
while, with  the  army  directed  against  Quebec,  has  crossed  from 
the  Kennebec  to  the  Chaudiere,  paddled  across  St.  Lawrence 
River,  and  on  the  very  day  that  Montgomery's  troops  take  pos- 
session of  Montreal,  November  13,  Arnold's  army  has  camped 
on  the  Plains  of  Abraham  behind  Quebec  walls,  whence  he  scat- 
ters his  foragers,  ravag- 
ing the  countryside  far 
west  as  Three  Rivers  for 
provisions.  The  trials  of 
his  canoe  voyage  from 
Maine  to  the  St.  Law- 
rence at  swift  pace  have 
been  terrific.  More  than 
half  his  men  have  fallen 
away  either  from  illness 
or  open  desertion.  Arnold 
has  fewer  than  seven  hun- 
dred men  as  he  waits  for 
Montgomery  at  Quebec. 

What  of  Guy  Carleton, 
the  English  governor, 
now?  Canada's  case 
seemed  hopeless.  The 
flower  of  her  army  had 
been  taken  prisoners,  and  no  help  could  come  before  May.  Des- 
perate circumstances  either  make  or  break  a  man,  prove  or  undo 
him.  As  reverses  closed  in  on  Carleton,  like  the  wrestlers  of  old 
he  but  took  tighter  grip  of  his  resolutions. 

On  November  11,  two  days  before  Preston's  men  surren- 
dered, Carleton,  with  two  or  three  military  officers  disguised  as 
peasants,  boarded  one  of  three  armed  vessels  to  go  down  from 
Montreal  to  Quebec.  All  the  cannon  at  Montreal  had  been 
dismounted   and    spiked.    What   powder   could    not   be   carried 


GENERAL    RICHARD    MONTGOMERY 


302  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

away  was  buried  or  thrown  into  the  river.  Amid  funereal 
silence,  shaking  hands  sadly  with  the  Montreal  friends  who  had 
gathered  at  the  wharf  to  say  farewell,  the  English  Governor  left 
Montreal.  That  night  the  wind  failed,  and  the  three  vessels  lay 
to  with  limp  sails.  At  Sorel,  at  Three  Rivers,  at  every  hamlet 
on  both  sides  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  lay  American  scouts  to  cap- 
ture the  English  Governor.  All  next  clay  the  vessels  lay  wind- 
bound.  Desperate  for  the  fate  of  Quebec,  Carleton  embarked 
on  a  river  barge  propelled  by  sweeps.  Passing  Sorel  at  night, 
Carleton  and  his  disguised  officers  could  see  the  camp  fires  of 
the  American  army.  Here  oars  were  laid  aside  and  the  raft 
steadied  down  the  tide  by  the  rowers  paddling  with  the  palms 
of  their  hands.  Three  Rivers  was  found  in  possession  of  the 
Americans,  and  a  story  is  told  of  Carleton,  foredone  from  lack 
of  sleep,  dozing  in  an  eating  house  or  tavern  with  his  head  sunk 
forward  upon  his  hands,  when  two  or  three  American  scouts 
broke  into  the  room.  Not  a  sign  did  the  English  party  in  peas- 
ant disguise  give  of  alarm  or  uneasiness,  which  might  have 
betrayed  the  Governor.  "  Come,  come,"  said  one  of  the  Eng- 
lish officers  in  French,  slapping  Sir  Guy  Carleton  carelessly  on 
the  back,  "  we  must  be  going"  ;  and  the  Governor  escaped  un- 
suspected. November  19,  to  the  inexpressible  relief  of  Quebec, 
Carleton  reached  the  capital  city. 

Quebec  now  had  a  population  of  some  five  thousand.  All 
able-bodied  men  who  would  not  fight  were  expelled  from  the 
city.  What  with  the  small  garrison,  some  marines  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  port,  and  the  citizens  themselves,  eighteen  hun- 
dred defenders  were  mustered.  On  the  walls  were  a  hundred 
and  fifty  heavy  cannon,  and  all  the  streets  leading  from  Lower 
to  Upper  Town  had  been  barricaded  with  cannon  mounted 
above.  At  each  of  the  city  gates  were  posted  battalions.  Sen- 
tries never  left  the  walls,  and  the  whole  army  literally  slept  in 
its  boots.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  natural  position  of 
Quebec  was  worth  an  army  in  itself.  On  all  sides  there  was 
access  only  by  steepest  climb.  In  front,  where  the  modern  vis- 
itor ascends  from  the  wharf  to  Upper  Town  by  Mountain  Street, 


QUEBEC  INVESTED 


j^o 


steep  as  a  stair,  barricades  had  been  built.  To  the  right,  where 
flows  St.  Charles  River  past  Lower  Town,  platforms  mounted 
with  cannon  guarded  approach.  To  the  rear  was  the  wall  behind 
which  camped  Arnold  ;  to  the  left  sheer  precipice,  above  which 


IX    savuXCAvMVeS 


SHEWING  CITY  OF  QUEBEC 

JRINt  SIEGE  BY  CONGRESS  TROOPS 
DIC-  1773  -MAY  1778 


i,4tfi 


D    \H--' 


3 


& 


•  ,!^S:::. 


MAP  OF  QUEBEC   DURING   SIEGE    OF   CONGRESS   TROOPS 

the  defenders  had  suspended  swinging  lanterns  that  lighted  up 
every  movement  on  the  path  below  along  the  St.  Lawrence. 

Early  in  December  comes  Montgomery  himself  to  Quebec 
on  the  very  ships  which  Carleton  had  abandoned.  Carleton 
refuses  even  the  letter  demanding  surrender.    Montgomery  is 


>o4 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


warned  that  forthwith  any  messenger  sent  to  the  walls  will  come 
at  peril  of  being  shot  as  rebel.  Henceforth  what  communication 
Montgomery  has  with  the  inhabitants  must  be  by  throwing  proc- 
lamations inside  or  bribing  old  habitant  women  as  carriers,  —  for 
the  habitants  continue  to  pass  in  and  out  of  the  city  with  provi- 
sions ;  and  a  deserter  presently  brings  word  that  Montgomery  has 
declared  he  will  "eat  his  Christmas  dinner  in  Quebec  or  in  Hell!" 
Whereupon  Carleton  retorts,  "  He  may  choose  his  own  place, 
but  he  shan't  eat  it  in  Quebec." 

Montgomery  was  now  in  the  same  position  as  Wolfe  at  the 
great  siege.  His  troops  daily  grew  more  ragged  ;  many  were 
without  shoes,  and  smallpox  was  raging  in  camp.  He  could  not 
tempt  his  foe  to  come  out  and  fight  ;  therefore  he  must  assault 
the  foe  in  its  own  stronghold.  It  will  be  remembered,  Wolfe  had 
feigned  attack  to  the  fore,  and  made  the  real  attack  to  the  rear. 
Montgomery  reversed  the  process.  He  feigned  attack  to  the  rear 
gates  of  St.  John  and  St.  Louis,  and  made  the  real  attack  to  the 
fore  from  the  St.  Charles  and  the  St.  Lawrence.  While  a  few 
soldiers  were  to  create  noisy  hubbub  at  St.  John  and  St.  Louis 
gates  from  the  back  of  the  city,  Arnold  was  to  march  through 
Lower  Town  from  the  Charles  River  side,  Montgomery  along 
the  narrow  cliff  below  the  Citadel,  through  Lower  Town,  to  that 
steep  Mountain  Street  which  tourists  to-day  ascend  directly 
from  the  wharves  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  On  the  squares  of  Upper 
Town  the  two  armies  were  to  unite  and  fight  Carleton.  The 
plan  of  attack  practially  encompassed  the  city  from  every  side. 
Spies  had  brought  rumors  to  Carleton  that  the  signal  for  assault 
for  the  American  troops  was  to  be  the  first  dark  stormy  night. 
Christmas  passed  quietly  enough  without  Montgomery  carrying- 
out  his  threat,  and  on  the  night  before  New  Year's  all  was  quiet. 
Congress  soldiers  had  dispersed  among  the  taverns  outside  the 
walls,  and  Carleton  felt  so  secure  he  had  gone  comfortably  to 
bed.  For  a  month,  shells  from  the  American  guns  had  been 
whizzing  over  Upper  Town,  with  such  small  damage  that  citizens 
had  continued  to  go  about  as  usual.  On  the  walls  was  a  constant 
popping  from  the  sharpshooters  of  both  sides,  and  occasionally 


MONTGOMERY'S  FIGHT  305 

an  English  sentry,  parading  the  walls  at  imminent  risk  of  being  a 
target,  would  toss  down  a  cheery  "  Good  morrow,  gentlemen,"  to 
a  Congress  trooper  below.  Then,  quick  as  a  flash,  both  men 
would  lift  and  fire  ;  but  the  results  were  small  credit  to  the  aim  of 
either  shooter,  for  the  sentry  would  duck  off  the  wall  untouched, 
just  as  the  American  dashed  for  hiding  behind  barricade  or  house 
of  Lower  Town.  Some  of  the  Americans  wanted  to  know  what 
were  the  lanterns  and  lookouts  which  the  English  had  con- 
structed above  the  precipice  of  Cape  Diamond.  Some  wag  of  a 
habitant  answered  these  were  the  sign  of  a  wooden  horse  with 
hay  in  front  of  it,  and  that  the  English  general,  Carleton,  had 
said  he  would  not  surrender  the  town  till  the  horse  had  caught 
up  to  the  hay.  Skulking  riflemen  of  the  Congress  troops  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  mansion  of  Bigot's  former  magnificence,  the  Intend- 
ant's  Palace,  and  Carleton  had  ordered  the  cannoneers  on  his  walls 
to  knock  the  house  down.    So  fell  the  house  of  Bigot's  infamy. 

Towards  2  a.m.  of  December  31  the  wind  began  to  blow  a 
hurricane.  The  bright  moonlight  became  obscured  by  flying 
clouds,  and  earth  and  air  were  wrapped  in  a.  driving  storm  of 
sleet.  Instantly  the  Congress  troops  rallied  to  their  headquarters 
behind  the  city.  Montgomery  at  quick  march  swept  down  the 
steep  cliff  of  the  river  to  the  shore  road,  and  in  the  teeth  of  a 
raging  wind  led  his  men  round  under  the  heights  of  Cape  Diamond 
to  the  harbor  front.  Heads  lowered  against  the  wind,  coonskin 
caps  pulled  low  over  eyes,  ash-colored  flannel  shirts  buttoned  tight 
to  necks,  gun  casings  and  sacks  wrapped  loosely  round  loaded 
muskets  to  keep  out  the  damp,  the  marchers  tramped  silently 
through  the  storm.  Overhead  was  the  obscured  glare  where  the 
lanterns  hung  out  in  a  blare  of  snow  above  Cape  Diamond.  Here 
rockets  were  sent  up  as  a  signal  to  Arnold  on  St.  Charles  River. 
Then  Montgomery's  men  were  among  the  houses  of  Lower  Town, 
noting  well  that  every  window  had  been  barricaded  and  darkened 
from  cellar  to  attic.  Somewhere  along  the  narrow  path  in  front 
of  the  town  Montgomery  knew  that  barricades  had  been  built 
with  cannon  behind,  but  he  trusted  to  the  storm  concealing  his 
approach  till  his  men  could  capture  them  at  a  rush.    At  Pres 


306  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

de  Ville,  just  where  the  traveler  approaching"  harbor  front  may 
to-day  see  a  tablet  erected  in  memory  of  the  invasion,  was  a  bar- 
ricade. Montgomery  halted  his  men.  Scouts  returned  with  word 
that  all  was  quiet  and  in  darkness — the  English  evidently  asleep; 
and  uncovering  muskets,  the  Congress  fighters  dashed  forward  at 
a  run.  But  it  was  the  silence  that  precedes  the  thunderclap. 
The  English  had  known  that  the  storm  was  to  signal  attack,  and 
guessing  that  the  rockets  foretokened  the  assailants'  approach, 
they  had  put  out  all  lights  behind  the  barricade.  Until  Mont- 
gomery's men  were  within  a  few  feet  of  the  log,  there  was  utter 
quiet;  then  a  voice  shrieked  out,  "Fire!— fire!"  Instantly  a  flash 
of  flame  met  the  runners  like  a  wall.  Groans  and  screams  split 
through  the  muffling  storm.  Montgomery  and  a  dozen  others 
fell  dead.  The  rest  had  broken  away  in  retreat, —  a  rabble  with- 
out a  commander,  —  carrying  the  wounded.  Behind  the  barricade 
was  almost  as  great  confusion  among  the  English,  for  Quebec's 
defenders  were  made  up  of  boys  of  fifteen  and  old  men  of  seventy, 
and  the  first  crash  of  battle  had  been  followed  by  a  panic,  when 
half  the  guards  would  have  thrown  down  their  arms  if  one  John 
Coffin,  an  expelled  royalist  from  Boston,  had  not  shouted  out 
that  he  would  throw  the  first  man  who  attempted  to  desert  into 
the  river. 

Meantime,  how  had  it  gone  with  Arnold  ? 

An  English  officer  was  passing  near  St.  Louis  Gate  when, 
sometime  after  two  o'clock,  he  noticed  rockets  go  up  from  the 
river  beyond  Cape  Diamond.  He  at  once  sounded  the  alarm. 
Bugles  called  to  arms,  drums  rolled,  and  every  bell  in  the  city 
was  set  ringing.  In  less  than  ten  minutes  every  man  of  Quebec's 
eighteen  hundred  was  in  place.  American  soldiers  marching 
through  St.  Roch,  Lower  Town,  have  described  how  the  tolling 
of  the  bells  rolling  through  the  storm  smote  cold  on  their  hearts, 
for  they  knew  their  designs  had  been  discovered,  and  they  could 
not  turn  back,  for  a  juncture  must  be  effected  with  Montgomery. 
A  moment  later  the  sham  assaults  were  peppering  the  rear  gates 
of  Quebec,  but  Guy  Carleton  was  too  crafty  a  campaigner  to  be 
tricked  by  any  sham.     He  rightly  guessed  that  the  real  attack 


"RATS  IN  A  TRAP 


307 


would  be  made  on  one  of  the  two  weaker  spots  leading  up  from 
Lower  Town.  "  Now  is  the  time  to  show  what  stuff  you  are 
made  of,"  he  called  to  the  soldiers,  as  he  ordered  more  detach- 
ments to  the  place  whence  came  crash  of  heaviest  firing.  This 
was  at  Sault-au-Matelot  Street,  a  narrow,  steep  thoroughfare, 
barely  twenty  feet  from  side  to  side.  Up  this  little  tunnel  of  a 
street  Arnold  had  rushed  his  men,  surmounting  one  barricade 
where  they  exchanged  their  own  wet  muskets  for  the  dry  guns 
of  the  English  deserters, 
dashing  into  houses  to  get 
possession  of  windows  as 
vantage  points,  over,  some 
accounts  say,  yet  another 
obstruction,  till  his  whole 
army  was  cooped  up  in  a 
canyon  of  a  street  directly 
below  the  hill  front  on 
which  had  been  erected  a 
platform  with  heavy  guns. 
It  was  a  gallant  rush,  but 
it  was  futile,  for  now  Carle- 
ton  outgeneraled  Arnold. 
Guessing  from  the  distance 
of  the  shots  that  the  attack 
to  the  rear  was  sheer  sham, 
the  English  general  rushed 
his  fighters  downhill  by  an- 
other gate  to  catch  Arnold  on  the  rear.  Quebec  houses  are  built 
close  and  cramped.  While  these  troops  were  stealing  in  behind 
Arnold  to  close  on  him  like  a  trap,  it  was  easy  trick  for  another 
English  battalion  to  scramble  over  house  roofs,  over  back  walls, 
and  up  the  very  stairs  of  houses  where  Arnold's  troops  were  guard- 
ing the  windows.  Then  Arnold  was  carried  past  his  men  badly 
wounded.  "We  are  sold,"  muttered  the  Congress  troops,  "caught 
like  rats  in  a  trap."  Still  they  pressed  toward  in  hand  to  hand 
scuffle,  with  shots  at  such  close  range  the  Boston  soldiers  were 


SIR    GUY   CARLETON 


308  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

shouting,  "  Quebec  men,  do  not  fire  on  your  true  friends  !  "  with 
absurd  pitching  of  each  other  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck  from  the 
windows.  Daylight  only  served  to  make  plainer  the  desperate 
plight  of  the  entrapped  raiders.  At  ten  o'clock  five  hundred 
Congress  soldiers  surrendered.  It  must  not  for  one  moment  be 
forgotten  that  each  side  was  fighting  gallantly  for  what  it  believed 
to  be  right,  and  each  bore  the  other  the  respect  due  a  good  fighter 
and  upright  foe.  In  fact,  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three  epi- 
sodes mutually  regretted,  it  may  be  said  there  were  fewer  bitter 
thoughts  that  New  Year's  morning  than  have  arisen  since  from 
this  war.  The  captured  Americans  had  barely  been  sent  to 
quarters  in  convents  and  hospitals  before  a  Quebec  merchant 
sent  them  a  gift  of  several  hogsheads  of  porter.  When  the  bod- 
ies of  Montgomery  and  his  fellow-comrades  in  death  were  found 
under  the  snowdrifts,  they  were  reverently  removed,  and  interred 
with  the  honors  of  war  just  inside  St.  Louis  Gate. 

Though  the  invaders  were  defeated,  Quebec  continued  to  be 
invested  till  spring,  the  thud  of  exploding  bombs  doing  little  harm 
except  in  the  case  of  one  family,  during  spring,  when  a  shell  fell 
through  the  roof  to  a  dining-room  table,  killing  a  son  where  he 
sat  at  dinner.  As  the  ice  cleared  from  the  river  in  spring,  both 
sides  were  on  the  watch  for  first  aid.  Would  Congress  send  up 
more  soldiers  on  transports;  or  would  English  frigates  be  rushed 
to  the  aid  of  Quebec  ?  The  Americans  were  now  having  trouble 
collecting  food  from  the  habitants,  for  the  French  doubted  the 
invaders'  success,  and  Congress  paper  money  would  be  worthless 
to  the  holders.  One  beautiful  clear  May  moonlight  night  a  vessel 
was  espied  between  nine  and  ten  at  night  coming  up  the  river  full 
sail  before  the  wind.  Was  she  friend  or  foe  ?  Carleton  and  his  offi- 
cers gazed  anxiously  from  the  citadel.  Guns  were  fired  as  signal. 
No  answer  came  from  the  ship.  Again  she  was  hailed,  and  again  ; 
yet  she  failed  to  hang  out  English  colors.  Carleton  then  signaled 
lie  would  sink  her,  and  set  the  rampart  cannon  sweeping  her  bows. 
In  a  second  she  was  ablaze,  a  fire  ship  sent  by  the  enemy  loaded 
with  shells  and  grenades  and  bombs  that  shot  off  like  a  fusillade 
of  rockets.    At  the  same  time  a  boat  was  seen  rowing  from  the 


RELIEF  AT  LAST 


309 


far  side  of  her  with  terrific  speed.  Carleton's  precaution  had  pre- 
vented the  destruction  of  the  harbor  fleet.  Three  days  later,  at 
six  in  the  morning,  the  firing  of  great  guns  announced  the  com- 
ing of  an  English  frigate.  At  once  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
of  Quebec  poured  down  to  the  harbor  front,  half -dressed,  mad 
with  joy.  By  midday,  Guy  Carleton  had  led  eight  hundred  sol- 
diers out  to  the  Plains  of  Abraham  to  give  battle  against  the 
Americans  ;  but  General  Thomas  of  the  Congress  army  did  not 
wait.  Such  swift  flight  was  taken  that  artillery,  stores,  tents, 
uneaten  dinners  cooked 
and  on  the  table,  were 
abandoned  to  Carleton's 
men.  General  Thomas 
himself  died  of  smallpox 
at  Sorel.  At  Montreal  all 
was  confusion.  The  city 
had  been  but  marking 
time,  pending  the  swing 
of  victory  at  Quebec.  In 
the  spring  of  1776  Con- 
gress had  sent  three  com- 
missioners to  Montreal 
to  win  Canada  for  the 
new  republic.  One  was 
the  famous  Benjamin 
Franklin,  another  a  prom- 
inent Catholic ;  but  the  French  Canadian  clergy  refused  to  for- 
get the  attack  of  Congress  on  the  Quebec  Act,  and  remained 
loyal  to  England. 

For  almost  a  year,  in  desultory  fashion,  the  campaign  against 
Canada  dragged  on,  Carleton  reoccupying  and  fortifying  Mont- 
real, Three  Rivers,  St.  John's,  and  Chamby,  then  pushing  up 
Champlain  Lake  in  October  of  1776,  with  three  large  vessels 
and  ninety  small  ones.  Between  Valcour  Island  and  the  main- 
land he  caught  Benedict  Arnold  with  the  Congress  boats  on 
October   11,  and  succeeded  in  battering  them  to  pieces  before 


BENEDICT   ARNOLD 


3IO  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Arnold  could  extricate  them.  As  the  boats  sank,  the  American 
crews  escaped  ashore  ;  but  the  English  went  no  farther  south  than 
Crown  Point  this  year.  If  Carleton  had  failed  at  Quebec,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  Canada  would  have  been  permanently  lost  to 
England  ;  for  the  following  year  France  openly  espoused  the 
cause  of  Congress,  and  proclamations  were  secretly  smuggled 
all  through  Canada  to  be  posted  on  church  doors,  calling  on 
Canadians  to  remain  loyal  to  France.  Curiously  enough,  it  was 
Washington,  the  leader  of  the  Americans,  who  checkmated  this 
move.  With  a  wisdom  almost  prophetic,  he  foresaw  that  if  France 
helped  the  United  States,  and  then  demanded  Canada  as  her 
reward,  the  old  border  warfare  would  be  renewed  with  tenfold 
more  terror.  No  longer  would  it  be  bushrover  pitted  against 
frontiersmen.  It  would  be  France  against  Congress,  and  Wash- 
ington refused  to  give  the  aid  of  Congress  to  the  scheme  of 
France  embroiling  America  in  European  wars.  The  story  of  how 
Clark,  the  American,  won  the  Mississippi  forts  for  Congress  is 
not  part  of  Canada's  history,  nor  are  the  terrible  border  raids  of 
Butler  and  Brant,  the  Mohawk,  who  sided  with  the  English,  and 
left  the  Wyoming  valley  south  of  the  Iroquois  Confederacy  a 
blackened  wilderness,  and  the  homes  of  a  thousand  settlers  smok- 
ing ruins.  It  is  this  last  raid  which  gave  the  poet  Campbell  his 
theme  in  "  Gertrude  of  Wyoming."  By  the  Treaty  of  Versailles, 
in  1783,  England  acknowledged  the  independence  of  the  United 
States,  and  Canada's  area  was  shorn  of  her  fairest  territory  by 
one  fell  swath.  Instead  of  the  Ohio  being  the  southern  boundary, 
the  middle  line  of  the  Great  Lakes  divided  Canada  from  her 
southern  neighbor.  The  River  Ste.  Croix  was  to  separate  Maine 
from  New  Brunswick.  The  sole  explanation  of  this  loss  to  Can- 
ada was  that  the  American  commissioners  knew  their  business 
and  the  value  of  the  ceded  territory,  and  the  English  commis- 
sioners did  not.  It  is  one  of  the  many  conspicuous  examples  of 
what  loyalty  has  cost  Canada.  England  is  to  give  up  the  west- 
ern posts  to  the  United  States,  from  Miami  to  Detroit  and 
Michilimackinac  and  Grand  Portage.  In  return  the  United 
States    federal    government    is    to    recommend    to    the    States 


TRICKS  OF   RINGSTERS 


3ii 


Governments  that  all  property  confiscated  from  Royalists  during 
the  war  be  restored. 


General  Haldimand,  a  Swiss  who  has  served  in  the  Seven 
Years'  War,  succeeds  Carleton  as  governor  in  1778.  The  times 
are  troublous.  There  is  still  a  party  in  favor  of  Congress.  The 
great  unrest,  which  ends  in  the  French  Revolution,  disturbs 
the  quiet  waters  of  the 
habitants'  life.  Then  that 
provision  of  the  Quebec 
Act,  by  which  legislative 
councilors  were  to  be 
nominated  by  the  crown, 
works  badly.  Councilors, 
judges,  crown  attorneys, 
even  bailiffs  are  appointed 
by  the  colonial  office  of 
London,  and  find  it  more 
to  their  interests  to  stay 
currying  favor  in  Lon- 
don than  to  attend  to 
their  duties  in  Canada. 
The  country  is  cursed 
by  the  evil  of  absent 
officeholders,  who  draw 
salaries  and  appoint  in- 
competent deputies  to  do  the  work.  As  for  the  social  unrest  that 
fills  the  air,  Haldimand  claps  the  malcontents  in  jail  till  the 
storm  blows  over  ;  but  the  tricks  of  speculators,  who  have  flocked 
to  Canada,  give  trouble  of  another  sort.  Naturally  the  ring  of 
English  speculators,  rather  than  the  impoverished  French,  be- 
came ascendant  in  foreign  trade,  and  during  the  American 
war  the  ring  got  such  complete  control  of  the  wheat  supply 
that  bread  jumped  to  famine  price.  Just  as  he  had  dealt  with 
the  malcontents  soldier  fashion,  so  Haldimand  now  had  a  law 
passed  forbidding  tricks  with  the  price  of  wheat.   Like  Carleton, 


GENERAL    HALDIMAND 


312  CANADA:    TI1K   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Haldimand  too  came  down  hard  on  the  land-jobbers,  who  tried 
to  jockey  poor  French  peasants  out  of  their  farms  for  bailiff's 
fees.  It  may  be  guessed  that  Haldimand  was  not  a  popular  gov- 
ernor with  the  English  clique.  Nevertheless,  he  kept  sumptuous 
bachelor  quarters  at  his  mansion  near  Montmorency  Falls,  was 
a  prime  favorite  with  the  poor  and  with  the  soldiers,  and  some- 
times deigned  to  take  lessons  in  pickle  making  and  home  keep- 
ing from  the  grand  dames  of  Quebec.  In  1786  Carleton  comes 
back  as  Lord  Dorchester. 

Congress  had  promised  to  protect  the  property  of  those  Roy- 
alists who  had  fought  on  the  losing  side  in  the  American  Revo- 
lution, but  for  reasons  beyond  the  control  of  Congress,  that 
promise  could  not  be  carried  out.  It  was  not  Congress  but  the 
local  governments  of  each  individual  state  that  controlled  prop- 
erty rights.  In  vain  Congress  recommended  the  States  Govern- 
ments to  restore  the  property  confiscated  from  the  Royalists. 
The  States  Governments  were  in  a  condition  of  chaos,  packed  by 
jobbers  and  land-grabbers  and  the  riffraff  that  always  infest 
the  beginnings  of  a  nation.  Instead  of  protecting  the  Royalists, 
the  States  Governments  passed  laws  confiscating  more  property 
and  depriving  those  who  had  fought  for  England  of  even  holding 
office.  It  was  easy  for  the  tricksters  who  had  got  possession  of 
the  loyalists'  lands  to  create  a  social  ostracism  that  endangered 
the  very  lives  of  the  beaten  Royalists,  and  there  set  towards 
Canada  the  great  emigration  of  the  United  Empire  Loyalists. 
To  Nova  Scotia,  to  New  Brunswick,  to  Prince  Edward  Island, 
to  Ontario,  they  came  from  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  and  New 
York  and  Massachusetts  and  Vermont,  in  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands. The  story  of  their  sufferings  and  far  wanderings  has  never 
been  told  and  probably  never  will,  for  there  is  little  official 
record  of  it  ;  but  it  can  be  likened  only  to  the  expulsion  of  the 
Acadians  multiplied  a  hundredfold.  To  the  Maritime  Provinces 
alone  came  more  than  thirty  thousand  people.  To  the  eastern 
townships  of  Quebec,  to  the  regions  of  Kingston  and  Niagara  and 
Toronto  in  Ontario  came  some  twenty  thousand  more.  It  needs  no 


COMING   OF  LOYALISTS 


313 


trick  of  fancy  to  call  up  the  scene,  and  one  marvels  that  neither 
poet  nor  novelist  has  yet  made  use  of  it.  Here  were  fine  old  Roy- 
alist officers  of  New  York  reduced  from  opulence  to  penury,  from 
wealth  to  such  absolute  destitution  they  had  neither  clothing 
nor  food,  nor  money  to  pay  ship's  passage  away,  now  crowded 
with  their  families,  and  such  wrecks  of  household  goods  as  had 
escaped  raid  and  fire,  on  some  cheap  government  transport  or  fish- 
ing schooner  bound  from  New  York  Harbor  to  Halifax  or  Fundy 
Bay.  Of  the  thirteen  thousand  people  bound  for  Halifax  there 
can  scarcely  be  a  family  that  has  not  lost  brothers  or  sons  in  the 
wrar.  Family  plate,  old  laces,  heirlooms,  even  the  father's  sword 
in  some  cases,  have  long  ago  been  pawned  for  food.  If  one 
finds,  as  one  does  find  all  through  Nova  Scotia,  fine  old  mahogany 
and  walnut  furniture  brought  across  by  the  Loyalists,  it  is  only 
because  walnut  and  mahogany  were  not  valued  at  the  time  of 
the  Revolution  as  they  are  to-day.  And  instead  of  welcome  at 
Halifax,  the  refugees  met  with  absolute  consternation  !  What  is 
a  town  of  five  thousand  people  to  do  with  so  many  hungry  vis- 
itants? They  are  quartered  about  in  churches,  in  barracks,  in 
halls  knocked  up,  till  they  can  be  sent  to  farms.  And  these  are 
not  common  immigrants  coming  fresh  from  toil  in  the  fields  of 
Europe  ;  they  are  gently  nurtured  men  and  women,  represent- 
ing the  aristocracy  and  wealth  and  conservatism  of  New  York. 
This  explains  why  one  finds  among  the  prominent  families  of 
Nova  Scotia  the  same  names  as  among  the  most  prominent 
families  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York.  To  the  officers  and 
heads  of  families  the  English  government  granted  from  two 
thousand  to  five  thousand  acres  each,  and  to  sons  and  daughters 
of  Loyalists  two  hundred  acres  each,  besides  .£3,000,000  in  cash, 
as  necessity  for  it  arose. 

On  the  north  side  of  Fundy  Bay  hardships  were  even  greater, 
for  the  Loyalists  landed  from  their  ships  on  the  homeless  shores 
of  the  wildwood  wilderness.  Rude  log  cabins  of  thatch  roof  and 
plaster  walls  were  knocked  up,  and  there  began  round  the  log 
cabin  that  tiny  clearing  which  was  to  expand  into  the  farm. 
The  coming  of  the  Loyalists  really  peopled  both  New  Brunswick 


3H 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


and  Prince  Edward  Island  :  the  former  becoming  a  separate 
province  in  1784,  named  after  the  ruling  house  of  England  ;  the 
latter  named  after  the  Duke  of  Kent,  who  was  in  command  of 
the  garrison  at  Charlottetown. 

More  strenuous  still  was  the  migration  of  the  United  Empire 
Loyalists  from  the  south.  Rich  old  planters  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  who  had  had  their  colored  servants  by  the  score,  now 
came  with  their  families  in  rude  tented  wagons,  fine  Chippen- 
dales jumbled  with  heavy  mahogany  furnishings,  up  the  old 
Cumberland  army  road  to  the  Ohio,  and  across  from  the  Ohio 
to  the  southern  townships  of  Quebec,  to  the  backwoods  of 
Niagara  and  Kingston  and  Toronto  and  modern  Hamilton,  and 
west  as  far  as  what  is  now  known  as  London.  I  have  heard 
descendants  of  these  old  southern  Loyalists  tell  how  hopelessly 
helpless  were  these  planters'  families,  used  to  hundreds  of  negro 
servants  and  now  bereft  of  help  in  a  backwoods  wilderness.  It 
took  but  a  year  or  so  to  wear  out  the  fine  laces  and  pompous 
ruffles  of  their  aristocratic  clothing,  and  men  and  women  alike 
were  reduced  to  the  backwoods  costume  of  coon  cap,  homespun 
garments,  and  Indian  moccasins.  Often  one  could  witness  such 
anomalies  in  their  log  cabins  as  gilt  mirrors  and  spindly  glass 
cabinets  ranged  in  the  same  apartment  as  stove  and  cooking 
utensils.  If  the  health  of  the  father  failed  or  the  war  had  left 
him  crippled,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  for  the  mother  to  take 
the  helm  ;  and  many  a  Canadian  can  trace  lineage  back  to  a 
United  Empire  Loyalist  woman  who  planted  the  first  crop  by 
hand  with  a  hoe  and  reaped  the  first  crop  by  hand  with  a  sickle. 
Sometimes  the  jovial  habits  of  the  planter  life  came  with  the 
Loyalists  to  Canada,  and  winter  witnessed  a  furbishing  up  of 
old  flounces  and  laces  to  celebrate  all-night  dance  in  log  houses 
where  partitions  were  carpets  and  tapestries  hung  up  as  walls. 
Sometimes,  too,  —  at  least  I  have  heard  descendants  of  the 
eastern  township  people  tell  the  story,  —  the  jovial  habits  kept 
the  father  tippling  and  card  playing  at  the  village  inn  while  the 
lonely  mother  kept  watch  and  ward  in  the  cabin  of  the  snow- 
padded  forests.    Of  necessity  the  Loyalists  banded  together  to 


LIFE   IN  THE  BACKWOODS 


315 


help  one  another.    There  were  "  sugarings  off"  in  the  maple 

woods  every  spring  for  the  year's  supply  of  homemade  sugar, 

—  glorious  nights  and  days  in  the  spring  forests  with  the  sap 

trickling  from  the  trees  to  the  scooped-out  troughs  ;   with  the 

grown-ups  working  over  the  huge   kettle  where   the   molasses 

was  being  boiled  to  sugar;   with  the  young  of  heart,  big  and 

little,  gathering  round  the  huge  bonfires  at  night  in  the  woods 

for  the  sport  of  a  taffy  pull,  with  molasses  dripping  on  sticks 

and  huge  wooden  spoons 

taken  from  the  pot.  There 

were  threshings  when 

the   neighbors   gathered 

together    to    help    one 

another    beat    out    their 

grain   from    the    straw 

with  a  flail.    There  were 

"harvest    homes"     and 

"  quilting    bees  "     and 

"loggings"   and    "barn 

raisings."    Clothes  were 

homemade.    Sugar  was 

homemade.     Soap  was 

homemade.     And  for 

years  and  years  the  only 

tea    known    was    made 

from  steeping  dry  leaves 

gathered  in  the  woods  ; 

the  only  coffee  made  from  burnt  peas  ground  up.    Such  were 

the   United   Empire    Loyalists,    whose   lives    some    unheralded 

poet  will  yet  sing,  —  not  an  unfit  stock  for  a  nation's  empire 

builders. 


JOSEPH    BRANT 


At  the  same  time  that  the  Loyalists  came  to  Canada,  came 
Joseph  Brant,  —  Thayendanegea,  the  Mohawk,  —  with  the  rem- 
nant of  his  tribe,  who  had  fought  for  the  English.  To  them  the 
government  granted  some  700,000  acres  in  Ontario. 


316 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


It  is  not  surprising  that  the  United  Empire  Loyalists  objected 
to  living"  under  the  French  laws  of  the  Quebec  Act.  They  had 
fought  for  England  against  Congress,  but  they  wanted  repre- 
sentative government,  and  the  Constitutional  Act  was  passed 
in  1 79 1  dividing  the  country  into  Upper  and  Lower  Canada, 
each  to  have  its  own  parliament  consisting"  of  a  governor,  a 
legislative   council   appointed   by   the   crown,   and   an  assembly 

elected  by  the  people. 
There  was  to  be  no  reli- 
gious test.  Naturally  old 
French  laws  would  pre- 
vail in  Quebec,  English 
laws  in  Ontario  or  Upper 
Canada.  By  this  act,  too, 
land  known  as  the  Clergy 
Reserves  was  set  apart  for 
the  Protestant  Church. 
The  first  parliament  in 
Quebec  met  in  the 
bishop's  palace  in  De- 
cember of  1792  ;  the  first 
parliament  of  Ontario  in 
Newark  or  Niagara  in 
September  of  the  same 
year,  the  most  of  the 
newly  elected  members 
coming  by  canoe  and  dugout,  and,  as  the  Indian  summer  of 
that  autumn  proved  hot,  holding  many  of  the  sessions  in  shirt 
sleeves  out  under  the  trees,  Lieutenant  Governor  Simcoe  report- 
ing that  the  electors  seem  to  have  favored  "  men  of  the  lower 
order,  who  kept  but  one  table  and  ate  with  their  servants." 
The  earliest  sessions  of  the  Ontario  House  were  marked  by  acts 
to  remove  the  capital  from  the  boundary  across  to  Toronto,  and 
to  legalize  marriages  by  Protestant  clergymen  other  than  of  the 
English  church.  It  is  amusing  to  read  how  Governor  Simcoe 
regarded  the  marriage  bill  as  an  opening  of  the  flood  gates  to 


LIEUTENANT    GOVERNOR    SIMCOE 


LIFE    IN  THE  BACKWOODS  317 

republicanism  ;  but  for  all  their  shirt  sleeves,  the  legislators 
enjoyed  themselves  and  danced  till  morning  in  Navy  Hall,  the 
Governor's  residence,  "Mad  Tom  Talbot,"  the  Governor's  aid-de- 
camp, losing  his  heart  to  the  fine  eyes  of  Brant's  Indian  niece, 
daughter  of  Sir  William  Johnson  of  the  old  Lake  George  battle. 

Down  at  Quebec  things  were  managed  with  more  pomp,  and 
no  social  event  was  complete  without  the  presence  of  the  Duke 
of  Kent,  military  commandant,  now  living  in  Haldimand's  old 
house  at  Montmorency.  Nova  Scotia  had  held  parliaments  since 
1758,  when  Halifax  elected  her  first  members. 

Besides  the  United  Empire  Loyalists,  other  settlers  were  coming 
to  Canada.  The  Earl  of  Selkirk,  a  patriotic  young  Scotch  noble- 
man, had  arranged  for  the  removal  of  evicted  Highlanders  to 
Prince  Edward  Island  in  1803  and  to  Baldoon  on  Lake  St.  Clair. 
Then  "  Mad  Tom  Talbot,"  Governor  Simcoe's  aid,  descendant  of 
the  Talbots  of  Castle  Malahide  and  boon  comrade  of  the  young 
soldier  who  became  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  becomes  so  enamored 
of  wilderness  life  that  he  gives  up  his  career  in  Europe,  gains 
grant  of  lands  between  London  and  Port  Dover,  and  lays  foun- 
dations of  settlements  in  western  Ontario,  spite  of  the  fact  he 
remains  a  bachelor.  The  man  who  had  danced  at  royalty's  balls 
and  drunk  deep  of  pleasure  at  the  beck  of  princes  now  lived  in 
a  log  house  of  three  rooms,  laughed  at  difficulties,  "  baked  his 
own  bread,  milked  his  own  cows,  made  his  own  butter,  washed 
his  own  clothes,  ironed  his  own  linen,"  and  taught  colonists  who 
bought  his  lands  "  how  to  do  without  the  rotten  refuse  of  Man- 
chester warehouses," —  the  term  he  applied  to  the  broadcloth  of 
the  newcomer. 

Lender  the  French  regime,  Canada  had  consisted  of  a  string  of 
fur  posts  isolated  in  a  wilderness.  It  will  be  noticed  that  it  now 
consisted  of  five  distinct  provinces  of  nation  builders. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

FROM  1812  TO  1820 

While  Canada  waged  war  for  her  national  existence  against 
her  border  neighbors  to  the  south,  as  in  the  days  of  the  bush- 
rovers'  raids  of  old,  afar  in  the  west,  in  the  burnt-wood,  iron-rock 
region  of  Lake  Superior,  on  the  lonely  wind-swept  prairies,  at  the 
foothills  where  each  night's  sunset  etched  the  long  shadows  of 
the  mountain  peaks  in  somber  replica  across  the  plains,  in  the 
forested  solitude  of  the  tumultuous  Rockies  was  the  ragged  van- 
guard of  empire  blazing  a  path  through  the  wilderness,  voyageur 
and  burnt-wood  runner,  trapper,  and  explorer,  pushing  across 
the  hinterlands  of  earth's  ends  from  prairie  to  mountains,  and 
mountains  to  sea. 

It  was  but  as  a  side  clap  of  the  great  American  Revolution 
that  the  last  French  cannon  were  pointed  against  the  English 
forts  on  Hudson  Bay.  When  France  sided  with  the  American 
colonies  a  fleet  of  French  frigates  was  dispatched  under  the 
great  Admiral  La  Perouse  against  the  fur  posts  of  the  English 
Company.  One  sleepy  August  afternoon  in  1782,  when  Samuel 
Hearne,  governor  of  Fort  Churchill,  was  sorting  furs  in  the  court- 
yard, gates  wide  open,  cannon  unloaded,  guards  dispersed,  the 
fort  was  electrified  by  the  sudden  apparition  of  three  men-of-war, 
sails  full  blown,  sides  bristling  with  cannon,  plowing  over  the 
waves  straight  for  the  habor  gate.  French  colors  fluttered  from 
the  masthead.  Sails  rattled  clown.  Anchors  were  cast,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  small  boats  were  out  sounding  the  channel  for  po- 
sition to  attack  the  fort.  Hearne  had  barely  forty  men,  and  the 
most  of  them  were  decrepits,  unfit  for  the  hunting  field.  As  sun- 
set merged  into  the  long  white  light  of  northern  midnight,  four 
hundred  French  mariners  landed  on  the  sands  outside  Churchill. 

3'S  ' 


HEARNE SURRENDERS  319 

Hearne  had  no  alternative.  He  surrendered  without  a  blow.  The 
fort  was  looted  of  furs,  the  Indians  driven  out,  and  a  futile  at- 
tempt made  to  blow  up  the  massive  walls.  Hearne  and  the  other 
officers  were  carried  off  captives.  Matonabbee,  the  famous  In- 
dian guide,  came  back  from  the  hunt  to  find  the  wooden  struc- 
tures of  Churchill  in  flame.  He  had  thought  the  English  were 
invulnerable,  and  his  pagan  pride  could  not  brook  the  shame  of 
such  ignominious  defeat.  Withdrawing  outside  the  shattered 
walls,  Matonabbee  blew  his  brains  out.  A  few  days  later  Port 
Nelson,  to  the  south,  had  suffered  like  fate.  The  English  officers 
were  released  by  La  Perouse  on  reaching  Europe.  As  for  the  fur 
company  servants,  they  waited  only  till  the  French  sails  had  dis- 
appeared over  the  sea.  Then  they  came  from  hiding  and  re- 
built the  burnt  forts.  Such  was  the  last  act  in  the  great  drama  of 
contest  between  France  and  England  for  supremacy  in  the  north. 

For  two  hundred  years  explorers  had  been  trying  to  find  a 
northern  passage  between  Europe  and  Asia  by  way  of  America, 
from  east  to  west.  Now  that  Canada  has  fallen  into  English 
hands;  now,  too,  that  the  Russian  sea-otter  hunters  are  coasting 
down  the  west  side  of  America  towards  that  region  which  Drake 
discovered  long  ago  in  California,  England  suddenly  awakens 
to  a  passion  for  discovery  of  that  mythical  Northwest  Passage. 
Instead  of  seeking  from  east  to  west  she  sought  from  west  to 
east,  and  sent  her  navigator  round  the  world  to  search  for  opening 
along  the  west  coast  of  America.  To  carry  out  the  exploration 
there  was  selected  as  commander  that  young  officer,  James  Cook, 
who  helped  to  sound  the  St.  Lawrence  for  Wolfe,  and  had  since 
been  cruising  the  South  Seas.  On  his  ships,  the  Resolution  and 
the  Discovery,  was  a  young  man  whose  name  was  to  become  a 
household  word  in  America,  Vancouver,  a  midshipman. 

March  of  1778  the  Resolution  and  Discovery  come  rolling  over 
the  long  swell  of  the  sheeny  Pacific  towards  Drake's  land  of 
New  Albion,  California.  Suddenly,  one  morning,  the  dim  sky 
line  resolved  into  the  clear-cut  edges  of  high  land,  but  by  night 
such  a  roaring  hurricane  had  burst  on  the  ships  as  drove  them 


320 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


far  out  from  land,  too  far  to  see  the  opening  of  Juan  de  Fuca, 
leading  in  from  Vancouver  Island,  though  Cook  called  the  cape 
there  "  Flattery,"  because  he  had  hoped  for  an  opening  and  been 
deluded.  Clearer  weather  found  Cook  abreast  a  coast  of  sheer 
mountains  with  snowy  summits  jagging  through  the  clouds  in 
tent  peaks.  A  narrow  entrance  opened  into  a  two-horned  cove. 
Small  boats  towed  the  ships  in  amid  a  flotilla  of  Indian  dug- 
outs whose  occupants 
chanted  weird  welcome 
to  the  echo  of  the  sur- 
rounding hills.  Women 
and  children  were  in 
the  canoes.  That  sig- 
nified peace.  The  ships 
were  moored  to  trees, 
and  the  white  men  went 
ashore  in  that  harbor 
to  become  famous  as 
the  rendezvous  of  Pa- 
cific fur  traders,  Nootka 
Sound,  on  the  sea  side 
of  Vancouver  Island. 

Presently  the  waters 
were  literally  swarm- 
ing with  Indian  canoes, 
and  in  a  few  days 
Cook's  crews  had  re- 
ceived thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  sea-otter  skins  for  such 
worthless  baubles  as  tin  mirrors  and  brass  rings  and  bits  of  red 
calico.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  fur  trade  in  sea  otter  with 
Americans  and  English.  Some  of  the  naked  savages  were  ob- 
served wearing  metal  ornaments  of  European  make.  Cook  did 
not  think  of  the  Russian  fur  traders  to  the  north,  but  easily 
persuaded  himself  these  objects  had  come  from  the  English  fur 
traders  of  Hudson  Bay,  and  so  inferred  there  must  be  a  North- 
east  Passage.    By  April,  Cook's  ships  were  once  more  afloat, 


CAPTAIN    COOK 


FORT   CHURCHILL   AS    IT   WAS  IN    1777 


TOTEM   POLES,  BRITISH   COLUMBIA 


COOK  ON  WEST  COAST  321 

gliding  among  the  sylvan  channels  of  countless  wooded  islands 
up  past  Sitka  harbor,  where  the  Russians  later  built  their  fort, 
round  westward  beneath  the  towering  opal  dome  of  Mount  St. 
Elias,  which  Bering  had  named,  to  the  waters  bordering  Alaska  ; 
but,  as  the  world  knows,  though  the  ships  penetrated  up  the 
channels  of  many  roily  waters,  they  found  no  open  passage. 
Cook  comes  down  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  New  Year  of  1779. 
There  the  vices  of  his  white  crew  arouse  the  enmity  of  the  pagan 
savages.  In  a  riot  over  the  theft  of  a  rowboat,  Cook  and  a  few 
men  are  surrounded  by  an  enraged  mob.  By  some  mistake  the 
white  sailors  rowing  out  from  shore  fire  on  the  mob  surrounding 
Cook.  Instantly  a  dagger  rips  under  Cook's  shoulder  blade.  In 
another  second  Cook  and  his  men  are  literally  hacked  to  pieces. 
All  night  the  conch  shells  of  the  savages  blow  their  war  challenge 
through  the  darkness  and  the  signal  fires  dance  on  the  moun- 
tains. By  dint  of  persuasion  and  threats  the  white  men  compel 
the  natives  to  restore  the  mangled  remains  of  the  commander. 
Sunday,  February  21,  amid  a  silence  as  of  death  over  the  waters, 
the  body  of  the  dead  explorer  is  committed  to  the  deep. 

The  chance  discovery  of  the  sea-otter  trade  by  Cook's  crew 
at  Nootka  brings  hosts  of  English  and  American  adventurers  to 
the  Pacific  Coast  of  Canada.  There  is  Meares,  the  English 
officer  from  China,  who  builds  a  rabbit  hutch  of  a  barracks  at 
Nootka  and  almost  involves  England  and  Spain  in  war  because 
the  Spaniards,  having  discovered  this  region  before  Cook,  knock 
the  log  barracks  into  kindling  wood  and  forcibly  seize  an  Eng- 
lish trading  ship.  There  is  Robert  Gray,  the  Boston  trader,  who 
pushes  the  prow  of  his  little  ship,  Columbia,  up  a  spacious  harbor 
south  of  Juan  de  Fuca  in  May  of  1792  and  discovers  Columbia 
River,  so  giving  the  United  States  flag  prior  claim  here.  There 
is  George  Vancouver,  the  English  commander,  sent  out  by  his 
government  in  1791  —  1793  to  receive  Nootka  formally  back  from 
the  Spaniards  of  California  and  to  explore  every  inlet  from  Van- 
couver Island  to  Alaska.  As  luck  would  have  it,  Vancouver,  the 
Englishman,  and   Gray,   the  American,  are  both  hovering  off 


.22 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  in  April  of  1792,  but  a  gale  drives 
the  ships  offshore,  though  turgid  water  plainly  indicates  the 
mouth  of  a  great  river  somewhere  near.  Vancouver  goes  on  up 
north.  Gray,  the  American,  comes  back,  and  so  Vancouver  misses 
discovering  the  one  great  river  that  remains  unmapped  in  Amer- 
ica.   Up   Puget    Sound,   named  after   his   lieutenant,    up   Fuca 

Straits,  round  Vancou- 
ver Island,  past  all  those 
inlets  like  seas  on  the 
mainland  of  British  Co- 
lumbia, coasts  Vancou- 
ver, rounding  south 
again  to  Nootka  in  Au- 
gust. In  Nootka  lie  the 
Spanish  frigates  from 
California,  bristling  with 
cannon,  the  red  and  yel- 
low flag  blowing  to  the 
wind  above  the  palisaded 
fort.  In  solemn  parade, 
with  Maquinna,  the 
Nootka  chief,  clad  in  a 
state  of  nature,  as  guest 
of  the  festive  board, 
Don  Quadra,  the  Span- 
ish officer,  dines  and 
wines  Vancouver ;  but 
when  it  comes  to  busi- 
ness, that  is  another 
matter !  Vancouver  understands  that  Spain  is  to  surrender  all 
sovereignty  north  of  San  Francisco.  Don  Quadra,  with  pomp- 
ous bow,  maintains  that  the  international  agreement  was  to  sur- 
render rights  only  north  of  Juan  de  Fuca,  leaving  the  rest  of 
the  northwest  coast  free  to  all  nations  for  trade.  Incidentally, 
it  may  be  mentioned,  Don  Quadra  was  right,  but  the  two  com- 
manders agree  to  send  home  to  their  respective  governments  for 


CAPTAIN  GEORGE  VANCOUVER 


VANCOUVER  ON   PACIFIC 


>23 


instructions.  Meanwhile  Robert  Gray,  the  American,  comes 
rolling  into  port  with  news  he  has  discovered  Columbia  River. 
Vancouver  is  skeptical  and  chagrined.  Having  failed  to  discover 
the  river,  he  goes  clown  coast  to  explore  it.  It  may  be  added, 
he  sends  his  men  higher  up  the  river  than  Gray  has  gone,  and 
has  England's  flag  of  possession  as  solemnly  planted  as  though 
Robert  Gray  had  never  entered  Columbia's  waters.  The  next 
two  years  Vancouver  spends  exploring  every  nook  and  inlet  from 


NOOTKA   SOUND 
(From  an  engraving  in  Vancouver's  journal) 

Columbia  River  to  Lynn  Canal.  Once  and  for  all  and  forever 
he  disproves  the  myth  of  a  Northeast  Passage.  His  work  was 
negative,  but  it  established  English  rights  where  America's 
claims  ceased  and  Russia's  began,  namely  between  Columbia 
River  and  Sitka,  or  in  what  is  now  known  as  British  Columbia. 
As  the  beaver  had  lured  French  bushrovers  from  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  the  Rockies,  so  the  sea  otter  led  the  way  to  the  ex- 
ploration of  the  Pacific  Coast.  Artist's  brush  and  novelist's  pen 
have  drawn  all  the  romance  and  the  glamour  and  the  adventure 
of   the  beaver   hunter's  life,  but    the    sea-otter  hunter's   life  is 


324  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

almost  an  untold  tale.  Pacific  Coast  Indians  were  employed  by 
the  white  traders  for  this  wildest  of  hunting.  The  sea  otter  is 
like  neither  otter  nor  beaver,  though  possessing  habits  akin  to 
both.  In  size,  when  full-grown,  it  is  about  the  length  of  a  man.  Its 
pelt  has  the  ebony  shimmer  of  seal  tipped  with  silver.  Cradled  on 
the  waves,  sleeping  on  their  backs  in  the  sea,  playful  as  kittens, 
the  sea  otters  only  come  ashore  when  driven  by  fierce  gales  ; 
but  they  must  come  above  to  breathe,  for  the  wave  wash  of  storm 
would  smother  them.  Their  favorite  sleeping  grounds  used  to 
be  the  kelp  beds  of  the  Alaskan  Islands.  Storm  or  calm,  to 
the  kelp  beds  rode  the  Indian  hunters  in  their  boats  of  oiled 
skin  light  as  paper.  If  heavy  surf  ran,  concealing  sight  and  sound, 
the  hunters  stood  along  shore  shouting  through  the  surf  and  wait- 
ing for  the  wave  wash  to  carry  in  the  dead  body  ;  if  the  sea  were 
calm,  the  hunters  circled  in  bands  of  twenty  or  thirty,  spearing 
the  sea  otter  as  it  came  up  to  breathe  ;  but  the  best  hunting  was 
when  hurricane  gales  churned  sea  and  air  to  spray.  Then  the 
sea  otter  came  to  the  kelp  beds  in  herds,  and  through  the  storm 
over  the  wave-dashed  reefs,  like  very  spirits  of  the  storm  incar- 
nate, rushed  the  hunters,  spear  in  hand.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
the  sea-otter  hunters  perished  by  tens  of  thousands  every  year, 
or  that  the  sea  otter  dwindled  from  a  yield  of  100,000  a  year 
to  a  paltry  200  of  the  present  day. 

Meanwhile  Nor'west  traders  from  Montreal  and  Quebec,  Eng- 
lish traders  from  Hudson  Bay,  have  gone  up  the  Saskatche- 
wan far  as  the  Athabasca  and  the  Rockies.  What  lies  beyond  ? 
Whither  runs  this  great  river  from  Athabasca  Lake  ?  Whence 
comes  the  great  river  from  the  mountains  ?  Will  the  river  that 
flows  north  or  the  river  that  comes  from  the  west,  either  oi 
them  lead  to  the  Pacific  Coast,  where  Cook's  crews  found  wealth 
of  sea  otter  ?  The  lure  of  the  Unknown  is  the  lure  of  the  siren. 
First  you  possess  it,  then  it  possesses  you  !  Cooped  up  in  his  fort 
on  Lake  Athabasca,  Alexander  MacKenzie,  the  Nor'wester,  be- 
gins wondering  about  those  rivers,  but  you  can't  ask  businessmen 
to  bank  on  the  Unknown,  to  write  blank  checks  for  profits  on  what 


DISCOVERY  OF  MACKENZIE   RIVER 


325 


you  may  not  find.  And  the  Nor'westers  were  all  stern  business 
men.  For  every  penny's  outlay  they  exacted  from  their  winter- 
ing partners  and  clerks  not  ten  but  a  hundredfold.  And  Alex- 
ander MacKenzie  received  no  encouragement  from  his  company 
to  explore  these  unknown  rivers.  The  project  got  possession  of 
his  mind.  Sometimes  he  would  pace  the  little  log  barracks  of 
Fort  Chippewyan  from  sunset  to  day  dawn,  trying  to  work  out  a 
way  to  explore  those  rivers  ;  or,  sitting  before  the  huge  hearth 


FORT    CHIPPEWYAN,    ATHABASCA    LAKE 
(From  a  recent  photograph) 


place,  he  would  dream  and  dream  till,  as  he  wrote  his  cousin 
Roderick,  "  I  did  not  know  what  I  was  doing  or  where  I  was." 
Finally  he  induced  his  cousin  to  take  charge  of  the  fort  for  a 
summer.  Then,  assuming  all  risk  and  outlay,  he  set  out  on  his 
own  responsibility  June  3,  1789,  to  follow  the  Great  River 
down  to  the  Arctic  Ocean.  "  English  Chief,"  who  often  went 
down  to  Hudson  Bay  for  the  rival  company,  went  as  MacKen- 
zie's  guide,  and  there  were  also  in  the  canoes  two  or  three  white 
men,  some  Indians  as  paddlers,  and  squaws  to  cook  and  make 
moccasins. 


326  CANADA  :   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

The  canoes  passed  Peace  River  pouring  down  from  the  moun- 
tains ;  then  six  dangerous  rapids,  where  many  a  Nor' west  voya- 
geur  had  perished,  one  of  MacKenzie's  canoes  going  smash  over 
the  falls  with  a  squaw,  who  swam  ashore  ;  then  rampart  shores 
came,  broader  and  higher  than  the  St.  Lawrence  or  the  Hudson, 
the  boats  skimming  ahead  with  blankets  hoisted  for  sails  through 
foggy  days  and  nights  of  driving  rain.  Cramped  and  rain-soaked, 
bailing  water  from  the  canoes  with  huge  sponges,  the  Indians 
began  to  whine  that  the  way  was  "  hard,  white  man,  hard."  Then 
the  river  lost  itself  in  a  huge  lagoon,  Slave  Lake,  named  after 
defeated  Indians  who  had  taken  refuge  here  ;  and  the  question 
was,  which  way  to  go  through  the  fog  across  the  marshy  lake  ! 
Poking  through  rushes  high  as  a  man,  MacKenzie  found  a  cur- 
rent, and,  hoisting  a  sail  on  his  fishing  pole,  raced  out  to  the  river 
again  on  a  hissing  tide.  Here  lived  the  Dog  Rib  Indians,  and 
they  frightened  MacKenzie's  men  cold  with  grewsome  tales  of 
horrors  ahead,  of  terrible  waterfalls,  of  a  land  of  famine  and 
hostile  tribes.  The  effect  was  instant.  MacKenzie  could  not 
obtain  a  guide  till  "  English  Chief  "  hoisted  a  Slave  Lake  Indian 
into  the  canoe  on  a  paddle  handle.  Though  MacKenzie  himself 
nightly  slept  with  the  vermin-infested  guide  to  prevent  desertion, 
the  fellow  escaped  one  night  during  the  confusion  of  a  thunder- 
storm. Again  a  chance  hunter  was  forcibly  put  into  the  canoe 
as  guide  ;  and  the  explorer  pushed  on  for  another  month.  North 
of  Bear  Lake,  Indian  warriors  were  seen  flourishing  weapons 
along  shore,  and  MacKenzie's  men  began  to  remark  that  the  land 
was  barren  of  game.  If  they  became  winter  bound,  they  would 
perish.  MacKenzie  promised  his  men  if  he  did  not  find  the  sea 
within  seven  days,  he  would  turn  back.  Suddenly  the  men  lost 
track  of  day,  for  they  had  come  to  the  region  of  long  light.  The 
river  had  widened  to  swamp  lands.  Between  the  13th  and  14th 
of  July  the  men  asleep  on  the  sand  were  awakened  by  a  flood  of 
water  lapping  in  on  their  baggage.  What  did  it  mean  ?  For  a 
minute  the)'  did  not  realize.  Then  they  knew.  It  was  the  tide. 
They  had  found  the  sea.  Hilarious  as  boys,  they  jumped  from 
bed  to  man  their  canoes  and  chase  whales. 


ACROSS  TO  THE  PACIFIC 


327 


September  12,  all  sails  up  before  a  driving  wind,  the  canoes 
raced  across  Athabasca  Lake  to  the  fort  landing,  Roderick,  his 
nephew,  shouting  a  welcome.  MacKenzie  had  laid  one  of  the  two 
ghosts  that  haunted  his  peace.  Now  he  must  lay  the  other. 
Where  did  Peace  River  come  from  ?  His  achievement  on  Mac- 
Kenzie River  had  been  greeted  by  the  other  Nor'west  partners 
with  a  snub.  Nevertheless  MacKenzie  asked  for  leave  of  absence 
that  he  might  go  to  Lon- 
don and  study  the  taking 
of  astronomic  observa- 
tions in  order  to  explore 
that  other  river  flowing 
from  the  mountains;  and 
in  London,  though  poor 
and  obscure,  he  heard  all 
about  Cook's  voyages 
and  Meare's  brush  with 
the  Spaniards  at  Nootka, 
and  plans  for  Captain 
Vancouver  to  make  a 
final  exploration  of  the 
Pacific  Coast.  Hurrying 
back  to  the  Nor'wester's 
fort  on  Peace  River,  he 
was  beset  by  the  blue 
devils  of  despondency. 
What  if  Peace  River  did  not  lead  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  at  all  ? 
What  if  he  were  behind  some  other  discoverer  ?  WThat  if  the 
venture  proved  a  fool's  trip  leading  to  a  blind  nowhere  ?  He 
was  only  a  junior  partner  and  could  ill  afford  either  money  or 
time  for  failure. 

Nevertheless,  when  the  furs  have  been  dispatched  for  Mon- 
treal. MacKenzie  launches  out  on  May  9  of  1793  with  a  thirty- 
foot  birch  canoe,  six  voyageurs,  and  Alexander  Mackay  as 
lieutenant,  for  the  hinterland  beyond  the  Rockies.  This  time  the 
going  was  against  stream, — hard  paddling,  but  safer  than  with  a 


ALEXANDER    MACKENZIE 


328  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

swift  current  in  a  river  with  dangerous  rapids.  Ten  days  later 
the  river  has  become  a  canyon  of  tumbling  cascades,  the  moun- 
tains sheer  wall  on  each  side,  with  snowy  peaks  jagging  up  through 
the  clouds.  To  portage  baggage  up  such  cliffs  was  impossible. 
Yet  it  was  equally  impossible  to  go  on  up  the  canyon,  and  Mac- 
Kenzie's  men  became  so  terrified  they  refused  to  land.  Jumping 
to  foothold  on  the  wall,  a  towrope  in  one' hand,  an  ax  in  the 
other,  MacKenzie  cut  steps  in  the  cliff,  then  signaled  above  the 
roar  of  the  rapids  for  the  men  to  follow.  They  stripped  them- 
selves to  swim  if  they  missed  footing,  and  obeyed,  trembling  in 
every  limb.  The  towrope  was  warped  round  trees  and  the  loaded 
canoe  tracked  up  the  cascade.  At  the  end  of  that  portage  the 
men  flatly  refused  to  go  on.  MacKenzie  ignored  the  mutiny  and 
ordered  the  best  of  provisions  spread  for  a  feast.  While  the  crew 
rested,  he  climbed  the  face  of  a  rocky  cliff  to  reconnoiter.  As 
far  as  eye  could  see  were  cataracts  walled  by  mighty  precipices. 
The  canoe  could  not  be  tracked  up  such  waters.  Mackay,  who 
had  gone  prospecting  a  portage,  reported  that  it  would  be  nine 
miles  over  the  mountain.  MacKenzie  did  not  tell  his  men  what 
was  ahead  of  them,  but  he  led  the  way  up  the  steep  mountain, 
cutting  trees  to  form  an  outer  railing,  and  up  this  trail  the  canoe 
was  hauled,  towline  round  trees,  the  men  swearing  and  sweating 
and  blowing  like  whales.  Three  miles  was  the  record  that  day, 
the  voyageurs  throwing  themselves  down  to  sleep  at  five  in  the 
afternoon,  wrapped  in  their  blanket  coats  lying  close  to  the  glacier 
edges.  Three  days  it  took  to  cross  this  mountain,  and  the  end  of 
the  third  day  found  them  at  the  foot  of  another  mountain.  Here 
the  river  forked.  MacKenzie  followed  the  south  branch,  or  what 
is  now  known  as  the  Parsnip.  Often  at  night  the  men  would  be 
startled  by  rocketing  echoes  like  musketry  firing,  and  they  would 
spring  to  their  feet  to  keep  guard  with  backs  to  trees  till  morn- 
ing; but  presently  they  learned  the  cause  of  the  pistol-shot  reports. 
They  were  now  on  the  Uplands  among  the  eternal  snows.  The 
sharp  splittings,  the  far  boomings,  the  dull  breaking  thuds  were 
trust  cornices  of  overhanging  snow  crashing  down  in  avalanches 
that  swept  the   mountain  slopes  clear  of  forests. 


A   SMASH   IN   BAD    RAPIDS 


329 


A  short  portage  from  the  Parsnip  over  a  low  ridge  to  a  lake, 
and  the  canoe  is  launched  on  a  stream  flowing  on  the  far  side 
of  the  Divide,  Bad  River,  a  branch  of  the  Fraser,  though  Mac- 
Kenzie  mistakes  it  for  an  upper  tributary  of  the  great  river  dis- 
covered by  Gray,  the  Columbia.  Then,  before  they  realize  it, 
comes  the  danger  of  going  with  the  current  on  a  river  with  rap- 
ids. The  stream  sweeps  to  a  torrent,  mad  and  unbridled.  The 
canoe  is  as  a  chip  in  a  maelstrom,  the  precipices  racing  past  in 


x  1 jt 

|v^l 

ILl&'' 

i 

ja^"r 

■W^^^fi 

^aH 

^B^Er*  *^s*     , 

■tgFll 

Kl*"' 

s^*! 

c_tr  *•'■- 

^jy|  w  m 

. 

*■  -4  "*j^MEB    Wu       >- 

fe  -  K_     '\^                3 

CAUSE    OF    A    PORTAGE 


a  blur,  the  Indians  hanging  frantically  to  the  gunnels,  bawling 
aloud  in  fear,  the  terrified  voyageurs  reaching,  .  .  .  grasping, 
.  .  .  snatching  at  trees  overhanging  from  the  banks.  The  next 
instant  a  rock  has  banged  through  bottom,  tearing  away  the 
stern.  The  canoe  reels  in  a  swirl.  Bang  goes  a  rock  through 
the  bow.  The  birch  bark  flattens  like  a  shingle.  Another  swirl, 
and,  to  the  amazement  of  all,  instead  of  the  death  that  had 
seemed  impending,  smashed  canoe,  baggage,  and  voyageurs  are 
dumped  on  the  shallows  of  a  sandy  reach.  One  can  guess  the 
gasp  of  relief  that  went  up.    Nobody  uttered  a  word  for  some 


330  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

time.  One  voyageur,  who  had  grasped  at  a  branch  and  been 
hoisted  bodily  from  the  canoe,  now  came  limping  to  the  discon- 
solate group,  and  had  stumbled  with  lighted  pipe  in  teeth  across 
the  powder  that  had  been  spread  out  to  dry,  when  a  terrific  yell 
of  warning  brought  him  to  his  senses,  and  relieved  the  tension. 
MacKenzie  spread  out  a  treat  for  the  men  and  sent  them  to 
gather  bark  for  a  fresh  canoe.  Other  adventures  on  Bad  River 
need  not  be  given.  This  one  was  typical.  The  record  was  but 
two  miles  a  clay  ;  and  now  there  was  no  turning  back.  The  diffi- 
culties behind  were  as  great  as  any  that  could  be  before.  June 
1 5  Bad  River  led  them  westward  into  the  Fraser,  but  some- 
where in  the  canyon  between  modern  Quesnel  and  Alexandria 
the  way  became  impassable.  Besides,  the  river  was  leading  too 
far  south.  MacKenzie  struck  up  Blackwater  River  to  the  west. 
Caching  canoe  and  provisions  on  July  4,  he  marched  overland. 
The  Pacific  was  reached  on  July  22,  1793,  near  Bella  Coola. 
By  September,  after  perils  too  numerous  to  be  told,  MacKenzie 
was  back  at  his  fur  post  on  Peace  River.  As  his  discoveries 
on  this  trip  blazed  the  way  to  new  hunting  ground  for  his  com- 
pany, they  brought  both  honor  and  wealth  to  MacKenzie.  He 
was  knighted  by  the  English  King  for  his  explorations,  and  he 
retired  to  an  estate  in  Scotland,  where  he  died  about  1820. 

Meanwhile,  Napoleon  has  sold  Louisiana  to  the  United  States. 
The  American  explorers,  Lewis  and  Clark,  have  crossed  from 
the  Missouri  to  the  Columbia ;  and  now  John  Jacob  Astor,  the 
great  fur  merchant  of  New  York,  in  181 1  sends  his  fur  traders 
overland  to  build  a  fort  at  the  mouth  of  Columbia  River.  The 
Northwest  Company  in  frantic  haste  dispatches  explorers  to 
follow  up  MacKenzie's  work  and  take  possession  of  the  Pacific 
fur  trade  before  Astor's  men  can  reach  the  field.  It  becomes  a 
race  for  the  Pacific. 

Simon  Fraser  is  sent  in  1806  to  build  posts  west  of  the 
Rockies  in  New  Caledonia,  and  to  follow  that  unknown  river 
which  MacKenzie  mistook  for  the  Columbia,  on  down  to  the 
sea.    Two  years  he  passed  building  the  posts,  that  exist  to  this 


DOWN    FRASER   RIVER 


331 


day  as  Fraser  planned  them  :  Fort  MacLeod  at  the  head  of 
Parsnip  River,  on  a  little  lake  set  like  an  emerald  among  the 
mountains  ;  Fort  St.  James  on  Stuart  Lake,  a  reach  of  sheeny 
green  waters  like  the  Trossachs,  dotted  with  islands  and  en- 
sconced in  mountains  ;  Fraser  Fort  on  another  lake  southward  ; 
Fort  St.  George  on  the  main  Fraser  River.  Then,  in  May  of 
1808,  with  four  canoes  Fraser  descends  the  river  named  after 
him,  accompanied  by 
Stuart  and  Ouesnel  and 
nineteen  voyageurs.  This 
was  the  river  where  the 
rapids  had  turned  Mac- 
Kenzie  back,  canyon 
after  canyon  tumultuous 
with  the  black  whirlpools 
and  roaring  like  a  tem- 
pest. Before  essaying 
the  worst  runs  of  the 
cascades  Fraser  ordered 
a  canoe  lightened  at  the 
prow  and  manned  by  the 
five  best  voyageurs.  It 
shot  down  the  current 
like  a  stone  from  a  cata- 
pult. "She  flew  from  one 
danger  to  another,"  re- 
lates   Fraser,    who    was 

watching  the  canoe  from  the  bank,  "  till  the  current  drove  her 
on  a  rock.  The  men  disembarked,  and  we  had  to  plunge  our 
daggers  into  the  bank  to  keep  from  sliding  into  the  river  as 
we  went  down  to  their  aid,  our  lives  hanging  on  a  thread." 
Like  MacKenzie,  Fraser  was  compelled  to  abandon  canoes. 
Each  with  a  pack  of  eighty  pounds,  the  voyageurs  set  out  on 
foot  down  that  steep  gorge  where  the  traveler  to-day  can  see 
the  trail  along  the  side  of  the  precipice  like  basket  work  be- 
tween   Lilloet  and   Thompson   River.     In  Fraser's  day  was  no 


SIMON    FRASER 


332  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

trail,  only  here  and  there  bridges  of  trembling  twig  ladders  across 
chasms  ;  and  over  these  swinging  footholds  the  marchers  had 
to  carry  their  packs,  the  river  rolling  below,  deep  and  ominous 
and  treacherous.  At  Spuzzum  the  river  turned  from  the  south 
straight  west.  Fraser  knew  it  was  not  the  Columbia.  His  men 
named  it  after  himself.  Forty  days  was  Fraser  going  from 
St.  George  to  tide  water.  Early  in  August  he  was  back  at  his 
fur  posts  of  New  Caledonia. 

Yet  another  explorer  did  the  Nor' westers  send  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  region  beyond  the  mountains.    David  Thompson 


*^^^^g^^ 


^pSWJr  If1"!*" 


ASTORIA    IX    1S13 


had  been  surveying  the  bounds  between  the  United  States 
and  what  is  now  Manitoba,  when  he  was  ordered  to  explore 
the  Rockies  in  the  region  of  the  modern  Banff.  Up  on  Canoe 
River,  Thompson  and  his  men  build  canoes  to  descend  the 
Columbia.  Following  the  Big  Bend,  they  go  down  the  rolling 
milky  tide  past  Upper  and  Lower  Arrow  Lakes,  a  region  of 
mountains  sheer  on  each  side  as  walls,  with  wisps  of  mist  mark- 
ing the  cloud  line.  Then  a  circular  sweep  westward  through 
what  is  now  Washington,  pausing  at  Snake  River  to  erect  formal 
claim  of  possession  for  England,  then  a  riffle  on  the  current,  a 


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MAP    UK  THE    WEST    COAST,   SHOWING    THE .  OGDEN    AND    ROSS    EXPLORATIONS 


CAUSE   OF  WAR  333 

smell  of  the  sea,  and  at  I  p.m.  on  July  15,  181 1,  Thompson 
glides  within  view  of  a  little  raw  new  fort,  Astoria.  In  the  race 
to  the  Pacific  the  Americans  have  gained  the  ground  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia  just  two  months  before  Thompson  came. 
In  Astor's  fort  Thompson  finds  old  friends  of  the  Northwest 
Company  hired  over  by  Astor. 

After  war  has  broken  out  in  open  flame  it 'is  easy  to  ascribe 
the  cause  to  this,  that,  or  the  other  act,  which  put  the  match  to 
the  combustibles  ;  but  the  real  reason  usually  lies  far  behind  the 
one  act  of  explosion,  in  an  accumulation  of  ill  feeling  that  pro- 
vided the  combustibles. 

So  it  was  in  the  fratricidal  war  of  18 12  between  Canada  and 
the  United  States.  The  war  was  criminal  folly,  as  useless  as  it 
was  unnecessary.  What  caused  it  ?  What  accumulated  the  ill 
feeling  lying  ready  like  combustibles  for  the  match  ?    Let  us  see. 

The  United  Empire  Loyalists  have,  by  18 12,  increased  to  some 
100,000  of  Canada's  population,  cherishing  bitter  memories  of 
ruin  and  confiscation  and  persecution  because  Congress  failed 
to  carry  out  the  pledge  guaranteeing  protection  to  the  losing 
side  in  the  Revolution.  Then,  because  Congress  failed  to  carry 
out  her  guarantee,  England  delayed  turning  over  the  western 
fur  posts  to  the  United  States  for  almost  ten  years  ;  and  whether 
true  or  false,  the  suspicion  became  an  open  charge  that  the  hos- 
tility of  the  Indians  to  American  frontiersmen  was  fomented  by 
the  British  fur  trader. 

Here,  then,  was  cause  for  rankling  anger  on  both  sides,  and  the 
bitterness  was  unwittingly  increased  by  England's  policy.  It  was 
hard  for  the  mother  country  to  realize  that  the  raw  new  nation  of 
the  United  States,  child  of  her  very  flesh  and  blood,  kindred  in 
thought  and  speech,  was  a  power  to  be  reckoned  with,  on  even 
ground,  looking  on  the  level,  eye  to  eye  ;  and  not  just  a  bumptious, 
underling  nation,  like  a  boy  at  the  hobbledehoy  age,  to  be  hec- 
tored and  chaffed  and  bullied  and  badgered  and  licked  into  shape, 
as  a  sort  of  protectorate  appended  to  English  interests. 


334  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

I  once  asked  an  Englishman  why  the  English  press  was  so 
virulently  hostile  to  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  her  rising  men. 

"Oh,"  he  answered,  "you  must  be  English  to  understand 
that.  We  never  think  it  hurts  a  boy  to  be  well  ragged  when 
he  's  at  school." 

Something  of  that  spirit  was  in  England's  attitude  to  the  new 
nation  of  the  United  States.  England  was  hard  pressed  in  life- 
and-death  struggle  with  Napoleon.  To  recruit  both  army  and 
navy,  conscription  was  rigidly  and  ruthlessly  enforced.  Yet 
more  !  England  claimed  the  right  to  impress  British-born  sub- 
jects in  foreign  ports,  to  seize  deserters  in  either  foreign  ports 
or  on  foreign  ships,  and,  most  obnoxious  of  all,  to  search  neutral 
vessels  on  the  ocean  highway  for  deserters  from  the  British  flag. 
It  was  an  era  of  great  brutality  in  military  discipline.  Desertions 
were  frequent.  Also  thousands  of  immigrants  were  flocking  to 
the  new  nation  of  the  United  States  and  taking  out  naturaliza- 
tion papers.  England  ignored  these  naturalization  papers  when 
taken  out  by  deserters. 

Let  us  see  how  the  thing  worked  out.  A  passenger  vessel  is 
coming  up  New  York  harbor.  An  English  frigate  with  cannon 
pointed  swings  across  the  course,  signals  the  American  vessel 
on  American  waters  to  slow  up,  sends  a  young  lieutenant  with 
some  marines  across  to  the  American  vessel,  searches  her  from 
stem  to  stern,  or  compels  the  American  captain  to  read  the 
roster  of  the  crew,  forcibly  seizes  half  a  dozen  of  the  American 
crew  as  British  deserters,  and  departs,  leaving  the  Americans 
gasping  with  wonder  whether  they  are  a  free  nation  or  a  tail  to 
the  kite  of  English  designs.  It  need  not  be  explained  that  the 
offense  was  often  aggravated  by  the  swaggering  insolence  of  the 
young  officers.  They  considered  the  fury  of  the  unprepared 
American  crew  a  prime  joke.  In  vain  the  government  at  Wash- 
ington complained  to  the  government  at  Westminster.  Eng- 
land pigeonholed  the  complaint  and  went  serenely  on  her  way, 
searching  American  vessels  from  Canada  to  Brazil. 

Or  an  English  vessel  has  come  to  Hampton  Roads  to  wood 
and  water.    An  English  officer  thinks  he  recognizes  among  the 


THE   CHESAPEAKE  OUTRAGE  335 

American  crews  men  who  have  deserted  from  English  vessels. 
Three  men  defy  arrest  and  show  their  naturalization  papers.  High 
words  follow,  broken  heads  and  broken  canes,  and  the  English  crew 
are  glad  to  escape  the  mob  by  rowing  out  to  their  own  vessel. 

Is  it  surprising  that  the  ill  feeling  on  both  sides  accumulated 
till  there  lacked  only  the  match  to  cause  an  explosion  ?  The  ex- 
plosion came  in  1807.  H.  M.  S.  Leopard,  cruising  off  Norfolk 
in  June,  encounters  the  United  States  ship  CJiesapeake.  At 
3  p.m.  the  English  ship  edges  down  on  the  American,  loaded 
to  the  water  line  with  lumber,  and  signals  a  messenger  will  be 
sent  across.  The  young  English  lieutenant  going  aboard  the 
CJiesapeake  shows  written  orders  from  Admiral  Berkeley  of  Hali- 
fax, commanding  a  search  of  the  Chesapeake  for  six  deserters. 
He  is  very  courteous  and  pleasant  about  the  disagreeable  busi- 
ness :  the  orders  are  explicit  ;  he  must  obey  his  admiral.  The 
American  commander  is  equally  courteous.  He  regrets  that  he 
must  refuse  to  obey  an  English  admiral's  orders,  but  his  own 
government  has  given  most  explicit  orders  that  American  ves- 
sels must  not  be  searched.  The  young  Englishman  returns  with 
serious  face.  The  ships  were  within  pistol  shot  of  each  other, 
the  men  on  the  English  decks  all  at  their  guns,  the  Americans 
off  guard,  lounging  on  the  lumber  piles.  Quick  as  flash  a 
cannon  shot  rips  across  the  Chesapeake's  bows,  followed  by  a 
broadside,  and  another,  and  yet  another,  that  riddle  the  Amer- 
ican decks  to  kindling  wood  before  the  astonished  officers  can 
collect  their  senses.  Six  seamen  are  dead  and  twenty-three 
wounded  when  the  CJiesapeake  strikes  her  colors  to  surrender; 
but  the  Leopard  does  not  want  a  captive.  She  sends  her  lieu- 
tenant back,  who  musters  the  four  hundred  American  seamen, 
picks  out  four  men  as  British  deserters,  learns  that  another 
deserter  has  been  killed  and  a  sixth  has  jumped  overboard 
rather  than  be  retaken,  takes  his  prisoners  back  to  the  Leopard, 
which  proceeds  to  Halifax,  where  they  are  tried  by  court-martial 
and  shot. 

It  is  n't  exactly  surprising  that  the  episode  literally  set  the 
United  States  on  fire  with  rage,  and  that  the  American  President 


33° 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


at  once  ordered  all  American  ports  closed  to  British  war  vessels. 
The  quarrel  dragged  on  between  the  two  governments  for  five 
years.  England  saw  at  once  that  she  had  gone  too  far  and 
violated  international  law.  She  repudiated  Admiral  Berkeley's 
order,  offered  to  apologize  and  pension  the  heirs  of  the  victims  ; 
but  as  she  would  not  repudiate  either  the  right  of  impressment  or 

the  right  of  search,  the 
American  government 
refused  to  receive  the 
apology. 

Other  causes  fanned 
the  flame  of  war.  The 
United  States  was  now 
almost  the  only  nation 
neutral  in  Napoleon's 
wars.  To  cripple  Eng- 
lish commerce,  Napo- 
leon forbids  neutral 
nations  trading  at  Eng- 
lish ports.  By  way  of 
retaliation  England  for- 
bids neutral  nations 
trading  with  French 
ports  ;  and  the  United 
States  strikes  back  by 
closing  American  ports 
to  both  nations.  It 
means  blue  ruin  to 
American  trade,  but 
the  United  States  cannot  permit  herself  to  be  ground  between 
the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  two  hostile  European  powers. 
Then,  sharp  as  a  gamester  playing  his  trump  card,  Napoleon  re- 
vokes his  embargo  in  1S10,  which  leaves  England  the  offender 
against  the  United  States.  Then  Governor  Craig  of  Canada  com- 
mits an  error  that  must  have  delighted  the  heart  of  Napoleon, 
who  always  profited  by  his  enemy's  blunders.    Well  meaning,  but 


GENERAL  SIR  JAMES    HENRY   CRAIG,    GOVERNOR 
GENERAL   OF   CANADA,    1S07-1S11 


WAR   DECLARED  337 

fatally  ill  and  easily  alarmed,  Craig  sends  one  John  Henry  from 
Montreal  in  1809  as  spy  to  the  United  States  for  the  double  pur- 
pose of  sounding  public  opinion  on  the  subject  of  war,  and  of 
putting  any  Federalists  in  favor  of  withdrawing  from  the  Union 
in  touch  with  British  authorities.  Craig  goes  home  to  England  to 
die.  Henry  fails  to  collect  reward  for  his  ignoble  services,  turns 
traitor,  and  sells  the  entire  correspondence  to  the  war  party  in 
the  United  States  for  $10,000.  That  spy  business  adds  fuel  to 
fire.  Then  there  are  other  quarrels.  A  deserter  from  the  Amer- 
ican army  is  found  teaching  school  near  Cornwall  in  Canada. 
He  is  driven  out  of  the  little  backwoods  schoolhouse,  pricked 
across  the  field  with  bayonets,  out  of  the  children's  view,  and 
shot  on  Canadian  soil  by  American  soldiers,  an  outrage  almost 
the  same  in  spirit  as  the  British  crew's  outrage  on  the  Chesa- 
peake. Also,  in  spite  of  apologies,  the  war  ships  clash  again. 
The  English  sloop  Little  Belt  is  cruising  off  Cape  Henry  in  May 
of  181 1,  looking  for  a  French  privateer,  when  a  sail  appears 
over  the  sea.  The  Little  Belt  pursues  till  she  sights  the  com- 
modore's blue  nag  of  the  United  States  frigate  President, 
then  she  turns  about  ;  but  by  this  time  the  President  has 
turned  the  tables  on  the  little  sloop,  and  is  pursuing  to  find 
out  what  the  former's  conduct  meant.  Darkness  settles  over 
the   two  ships   beating  about   the  wind. 

"What  sloop  is  that  ?  shouts  an  officer  through  a  speaking 
trumpet  from  the  American's  decks. 

"  What  ship  is  that  ?"  bawls  back  a  voice  through  the  darkness 
from  the  little  Englander. 

Then,  before  any  one  can  tell  who  fired  first  (in  fact,  each  ac- 
cuses the  other  of  firing  first),  the  cannon  are  pouring  hot  shot 
into  each  other's  hulls  till  thirty  men  have  fallen  on  the  decks  of 
the  Little  J>elt.  Apologies  follow,  of  course,  and  explanations  ; 
but  that  does  not  remedy  the  ill.  In  fact,  when  nations  and 
people  want  to  quarrel,  they  can  always  rind  a  cause.  War  is 
declared  in  June  of  18  12  by  Congress.  It  is  war  against  Eng- 
land ;  but  that  means  war  against  Canada,  though  there  are  not 
tort\ -five  hundred  soldiers  from  Halifax  to  Lake  Huron.    As  for 


J0° 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


the  American  forces,  they  muster  an  army  of  some  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand;  but  their  generals  complain  they  are  "an 
untrained  mob  ";  and  events  justified  the  complaints. 


There  is  nothing  for  Canada  to  do  but  stand  up  to  the  war  of 
England's  making  and  fight  for  hearth  and  home.  Canada  on 
the  defensive,  there  is  nothing  for  the  States  to  do  but  invade ; 
and   the   American  generals   don't   relish   the   task   with   their 

"  untrained  mob." 

Upper  Canada  or  Ontario 
has  not  four  hundred  soldiers 
from  Kingston  to  Detroit 
River;  but  Major  General 
Isaac  Brock  calls  for  volun- 
teers. The  clang  of  arms,  of 
drill,  of  target  practice,  re- 
sounds in  every  hamlet  through 
Canada.  At  Kingston,  at  To- 
ronto, at  Fort  George  (Ni- 
agara), at  Erie  where  Niagara 
River  comes  from  the  lake, 
at  Amherstburg,  southeast 
^_^__y         ^-/^/  //    °f  Detroit,  are  stationed  gar- 

_ ,  . —      f  f  CsC^^—^    risons  to  repel  invasion,  with 

william  hull  hastily    erected    cannon    and 

mortar  commanding  approach 
from  the  American  side.  And  invasion  comes  soon  enough.  The 
declaration  of  war  became  known  in  Canada  about  the  20th  of 
June.  By  July  3  General  Hull  of  Michigan  is  at  Detroit  with 
two  thousand  five  hundred  men  preparing  to  sweep  western 
Ontario.  July  3  an  English  schooner  captures  Hull's  provision 
boat  coming  up  Detroit  River,  but  Hull  crosses  with  his  army 
on  July  12  to  Sandwich,  opposite  Detroit,  and  issues  proclama- 
tion calling  on  the  people  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  English  rule. 
How  such  an  invitation  fell  on  United  Empire  Loyalist  ears 
may  be  guessed.    Meanwhile  comes  word   that   the  Northwest 


HULL   SURRENDERS  AT  DETROIT  339 

Company's  voyageurs,  with  four  hundred  Indians,  have  captured 
Michilimackinac  without  a  blow.  The  fall  of  Michilimackinac, 
the  failure  of  the  Canadians  to  rally  to  his  flag,  the  loss  of  his 
provision  boat,  dampen  Hull's  ardor  so  that  on  August  8  he 
moves  back  with  his  troops  to  Detroit.  Eight  days  later  comes 
Brock  from  Niagara  with  five  hundred  Loyalists  and  one  thou- 
sand Indians  under  the  great  chief  Tecumseh  to  join  Procter's 
garrison  of  six  hundred  at  Amherstburg.  The  Canadians  have 
come  by  open  boat  up  Lake  Erie  from  Niagara  through  furious 
rains ;  but  they  are  fighting  for  their  homes,  and  with  eager  en- 
thusiasm follow  Brock  on  up  Detroit  River  to  Sandwich,  oppo- 
site the  American  fort.  Indians  come  by  night  and  lie  in  ambush 
south  of  Detroit  to  protect  the  Canadians  while  they  cross  the 
river.  Then  the  cannon  on  the  Canadian  side  begin  a  humming 
of  bombs  overhead.  While  the  bombs  play  over  the  stream  at 
Sandwich,  Brock  rushes  thirteen  hundred  men  across  the  river 
south  of  Detroit,  and  before  midday  of  August  16  is  marching 
his  men  through  the  woods  to  assault  the  fort,  when  he  is  met 
by  an  officer  carrying  out  the  white  flag  of  surrender.  While 
Brock  was  crossing  the  river,  something  had  happened  inside  the 
fort  at  Detroit.  It  was  one  of  those  curious  cases  of  blind  panic 
when  only  the  iron  grip  of  a  strong  man  can  hold  demoralized 
forces  in  hand.  The  American  officers  had  sat  clown  to  break- 
fast in  the  mess  room  at  day  dawn,  when  a  bomb  plunged 
through  the  roof  killing  four  on  the  spot  and  spattering  the 
walls  with  the  blood  of  the  mangled  bodies.  Disgraceful  stories 
are  told  of  Hull's  conduct.  Ashy  with  fright  and  trembling,  he 
dashed  from  the  room,  and,  before  the  other  officers  knew  what 
he  was  about,  had  offered  to  surrender  his  army,  twenty-five  hun- 
dred arms,  thirty-three  cannon,  an  armed  brig,  and  the  whole 
state  of  Michigan.  The  case  is  probably  more  an  example  of 
nervous  hysterics  than  treason,  though  the  other  American 
officers  broke  their  swords  with  rage  and  chagrin,  declaring  they 
had  been  sold  for  a  price.  It  was  but  the  first  of  the  many  times 
the  lesson  was  taught  in  this  war,  that  however  well  intentioned  a 
volunteer's  courage  may  be,  it  takes  a  seasoned  man  to  make  war. 


140 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


Ten  minutes  later,  a  boy  had  climbed  the  flagstaff  and  hung  out 
the  English  flag  over  Detroit.  Of  the  captured  American  army 
Brock  permitted  the  volunteer  privates  to  go  home  on  parole. 
The  regulars,  including  Hull,  were  carried  back  prisoners  on  the 
boats  to  Niagara,  to  be  forwarded  to  Montreal.    At  Montreal, 


MAP   SHOWING   THE    LOCATION   OF   THE    MILITARY   OPERATIONS   ON 
THE    DETROIT    RIVER 

Hull  was  given  back  to  the  Americans  in  exchange  for  thirty 
British  prisoners.  He  was  sentenced  by  court-martial  to  be  shot 
for  treason  and  cowardice,  but  the  sentence  was  commuted. 


At  Niagara  River,  where  the  main  troops  of  Ontario  were 
centered,  Brock's  victory  was  greeted  with  simply  a  madness  of 
joy.  From  the  first  it  had  been  plain  that  the  principal  fighting 
in  Ontario  would  take  place  at  Niagara,  and  along  the  river 
Brock  had  concentrated  some  sixteen  hundred  volunteer  troops, 


THE   FIGHT   ROUND   NIAGARA  34 1 

raw  farm  hands  most  of  them,  with  a  goodly  proportion  of  de- 
scendants from  the  United  Empire  Loyalists,  who  had  furbished 
out  their  fathers'  swords.  But  the  army  was  in  rags  and  tatters  ; 
many  men  had  no  shoes  ;  before  Brock  captured  the  guns  at 
Detroit  there  had  not  been  muskets  to  go  round  the  men,  and 
there  were  not  cannon  enough  to  mount  the  batteries  cast  up 
along  Niagara  River  facing  the  American  defenses.  As  the 
boats  came  clown  Lake  Erie  and  disembarked  the  American 
prisoners  on  August  24,  at  Fort  Erie  on  the  Canadian  side,  oppo- 
site Black  Rock  and  Buffalo,  wild  yells  of  jubilation  rent  the 
air.  By  nightfall  every  camp  on  the  Canadian  side  for  the 
whole  forty  miles  of  Niagara  River's  course  echoed  to  shout 
and  counter  shout,  and  a  wild  refrain  which  some  poet  of  the 
haversack  had  composed  on  the  spot : 

We  '11  subdue  the  mighty  Democrats  and  pull  their  dwellings  down, 
And  have  the  States  inhabited  with  subjects  of  the  Crown. 

Take  a  survey  of  the  Niagara  region.  South  is  Lake  Erie, 
north  is  Lake  Ontario,  between  them  Niagara  River  flowing 
almost  straight  north  through  a  steep  dark  gorge  hewn  out  of 
the  solid  rock  by  the  living  waters  of  all  the  Upper  Lakes, 
crushed  and  cramped,  carving  a  turbulent  way  through  this 
narrow  canyon.  Midway  in  the  river's  course  the  blue  waters 
begin  to  race.  The  race  becomes  a  dizzy  madness  of  blurred, 
whirling,  raging  waters.  Then  there  is  the  leap,  the  plunge,  the 
shattering  anger  of  inland  seas  hurling  their  strength  over  the 
sheer  precipice  in  resistless  force.  Then  the  foaming  whirlpool 
below,  and  the  shadowy  gorge,  and  the  undercurrent  eddying 
away  in  the  swift-flowing  waters  of  the  river  coming  out  on  Lake 
Ontario.  On  one  side  are  the  Canadian  forts,  on  the  other  the 
American,  slab-walled  all  of  them,  with  scarcely  a  stone  founda- 
tion except  in  bastions  used  as  powder  magazines.  Fort  Erie  on 
the  Canadian  side  faces  Buffalo  and  Black  Rock  on  the  Amer- 
ican side.  Where  the  old  French  voyageurs  used  to  portage  past 
the  Falls,  about  halfway  on  the  Canadian  side  south  of  the 
precipice,  is  the  village  of  Chippewa.    Here  Brock  has  stationed 


542 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


BWwiaton 

mi'"1'!"    .:  / 


a  garrison  with  cannon.  Then  halfway  between  the  Falls  and 
Lake  Ontario  are  high  cliffs  known  as  Oueenston  Heights,  in 
plain  view  of  the  American  town  of  Lewiston  on  the  other  side. 
Cannon  line  the  river  cliffs  on  both  sides  here.  All  about  Lewis- 
ton  the  fields  are  literally  white  with  the  tents  of  General  Van 

Rensselaer's  army,  now 
grown  from  twenty-five 
hundred  to  almost  eight 
thousand.  On  the  Cana- 
dian side  cannon  had 
been  mounted  on  the 
cliffs  known  as  Queens- 
ton  Heights.  Possibly 
because  the  two  hundred 
men  would  make  poor 
showing  in  tents,  Brock 
has  his  soldiers  here  take 
quarters  in  the  farm- 
houses. For  the  rest  it 
is  such  a  rural  scene  as 


one  may  witness  any 
midsummer,  —  rolling 
yellow  wheat  fields  sur- 
rounded by  the  zigzag 
rail  fences,  with  square 
farmhouses  of  stone  and 
the  fields  invariably 
backed  by  the  uncleared 
bush  land.  Six  miles  far- 
ther clown  the  river, 
where  the  waters  join 
Lake  Ontario,  is  the  English  post,  Fort  George,  near  the  old 
capital,  Newark,  and  just  opposite  the  American  fort  of  Niagara. 
With  the  exception  of  the  Grand  Island  region  on  the  river,  it 
may  be  said  that  both  armies  are  in  full  view  of  each  other. 
Sometimes,  when  to  the  tramp  —  tramp  —  tramp  of  the  sentry's 


MAP  SHOWING  THE  LOCATION  OF  THE  MILITARY 
OPERATIONS  ON  THE  NIAGARA  FRONTIER 


SOLDIERS  EXCHANGE  JOKES  ACROSS  GORGE      343 

tread  a  loud  "  All 's  well  "  echoes  across  the  river  from  Lewiston 
to  the  Canadian  side,  some  wag  at  Queenston  will  take  up  the 
cry  through  the  dark  and  bawl  back,  "All 's  well  here  too  ";  and 
all  night  Ions:  the  two  sentries  bawl  back  and  forward  to  each 
other  through  the  dark.  Sometimes,  too,  though  strictest  orders 
are  issued  against  such  ruffian  warfare  by  both  Van  Rensselaer 
and  Brock,  the  sentries  chance  shots  at  each  other  through  the 
dark.  Drums  beat  reveille  at  four  in  the  morning,  and  the  rub-a- 
dub-dub  of  Queenston  Heights  is  echoed  by  rat-tat-too  of  Lewis- 
ton,  though  river  mist  hides  the  armies  from  each  other  in  the 
morning;.  Iron  baskets  filled  with  oiled  bark  are  used  as  tele- 
graph  signals,  and  one  may  guess  how,  when  the  light  flared  up 
of  a  night  on  the  Canadian  heights,  scouts  carried  word  to  the 
officers  on  the  American  side.  One  may  guess,  too,  the  effect 
on  Van  Rensselaer's  big  untrained  army,  when,  with  the  sun 
aglint  on  scarlet  uniform,  they  saw  their  fellow-countrymen  of 
Detroit  marched  prisoners  between  British  lines  along  the  heights 
of  Queenston  opposite  Lewiston.  Rage,  depression,  shame,  knew 
no  bounds  ;  and  the  army  was  unable  to  vent  anger  in  heroic  at- 
tack, for  England  had  repealed  her  embargo  laws,  and  when 
Brock  came  back  from  Detroit  he  found  that  an  armistice  had 
been  arranged,  and  both  sides  had  been  ordered  to  suspend 
hostilities  till  instructions  came  from  the  governments.  The 
truce,  it  may  be  added,  was  only  an  excuse  to  enable  both  sides 
to  complete  preparations  for  the  war.  In  a  few  weeks  ball  and 
bomb  were  again  singing  their  shrill  songs  in  mid-air. 

Brock's  victory  demoralized  the  rabble  under  the  American 
Van  Rensselaer.  Desertions  increased  daily,  and  discipline  was 
so  notoriously  bad  Van  Rensselaer  and  his  staff  dared  not  punish 
desertion  for  fear  of  the  army  —  as  one  of  them  put  it  —  "fall- 
ing to  pieces."  Van  Rensselaer  saw  that  he  must  strike,  and 
strike  at  once,  and  strike  successfully,  or  he  would  not  have  any 
army  left  at  all.  Two  thousand  Pennsylvanians  had  joined  him  ; 
and  on  October  9,  at  one  in  the  morning,  Lieutenant  Elliott  led 
one  hundred  men  with  muffled  paddles  from  the  American  side  to 
two  Canadian  ships  lying  anchored  off  Fort  Erie.    One  was  the 


>44 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OE  THE   NORTH 


brig  captured  from  Hull  at  Detroit,  the  other  a  sloop  belonging 
to  the  Northwest  Fur  Company,  loaded  with  peltries.  Before  the 
British  were  well  awake,  Elliott  had  boarded  decks,  captured 
the  fur  ship  with  forty  prisoners,  and  was  turning  her  guns  on 
the  other  ship  when  Fort  Erie  suddenly  awakened  with  a  belch 
of  cannon  shot.  The  Americans  cut  the  cables  and  drifted  on  the 
captured  ship  downstream.  The  fur  ship  was  worked  safely  over 
to  the  American  side,  where  it  was  welcomed  with  wild  cheers. 
The  brig  was  set  on  fire  and  abandoned. 

Van  Rensselaer  decided  to  take  advantage  of  the  elated  spirit 
among  the  troops  and  invade  Canada  at  once. 

Over  on  the  Canadian  side,  Brock,  at  Fort  George,  wanted  to 
offer  an  exchange  of  Detroit  prisoners  for  the  voyageurs  on  the 
captured  fur  ship,  and  Evans  was  ordered  to  paddle  across  to 
Lewiston  with  the  offer,  white  handkerchief  fluttering  as  a  flag 
of  truce.  Evans  could  not  mistake  the  signs  as  he  landed  on  the 
American  shore.  Sentries  dashed  down  to  stop  his  advance  at 
bayonet  point.  He  was  denied  speech  with  Van  Rensselaer  and 
refused  admittance  to  the  American  camp  ;  and  the  reason  was 
plain.  A  score  of  boats,  capable  of  holding  thirty  men  each,  lay 
moored  at  the  Lewiston  shore.  Along  the  rain-soaked  road  be- 
hind the  shore  floundered  and  marched  troops,  fresh  troops  join- 
ing Van  Rensselaer's  camp.  It  was  dark  before  Evans  returned 
to  Queenston  Heights  and  close  on  midnight  when  he  reached 
Major  General  Brock  at  Fort  George.  Brock  thought  Evans 
over  anxious,  and  both  went  to  bed,  or  at  least  threw  themselves 
down  on  a  mattress  to  sleep.  At  two  o  'clock  they  were  awakened 
by  a  sound  which  could  not  be  mistaken,  —  the  thunderous  boom- 
ing of  a  furious  cannonade  from  Queenston  Heights.  Brock 
realized  that  the  two  hundred  Canadians  on  the  cliff  must  be  re- 
pelling an  invasion,  but  he  was  suspicious  that  the  attack  from 
Lewiston  was  a  feint  to  draw  off  attention  from  Fort  Niagara 
opposite  Fort  George,  and  he  did  not  at  once  order  troops  to  the 
aid  of  Queenston  Heights. 

Evans*  predictions  of  invasion  were  only  too  true.  After  one 
attempt  to  cross  the  gorge,  which  was  balked  by  storm,  Van 


THE  TRAVERSE  AT  QUEENSTON 


345 


Rensselaer  finally  got  his  troops  down  to  the  water's  edge  about 
midnight  of  October  12-13.  The  night  was  dark,  moonless, rainy, 
—  a  wind  which  mingled  with  the  roar  of  the  river  drowning  all 
sound  of  marching  troops.  Three  hundred  men  embarked  on  the 
first  passage  of  the  boats  across  the  swift  river,  the  poor  old  pilot 
literally  groaning  aloud  in  terror.  Three  of  the  boats  were  car- 
ried beyond  the  landing 
on  the  Canadian  side, 
and  had  to  come  back 
through  the  dark  to  get 
their  bearings  ;  but  the 
rest,  led  by  Van  Rensse- 
laer, had  safely  landed 
on  the  Canadian  side, 
when  the  batteries  of 
Queenston  Heights 
flashed  to  life  in  sheets 
of  fire,  lighting  up  the 
dark  tide  of  the  river 
gorge  and  sinking  half 
a  dozen  boat  loads  of  men 
now  coming  on  a  sec- 
ond traverse.  Instantly 
Lewiston's  cannon  pealed 
furious  answer  to  the 
Canadian  fire,  and  in  the 
sheet-lightning  flame  of 
the  flaring  batteries  thousands  could  be  seen  on  the  American 
shore  watching  the  conflict.  As  the  Americans  landed  they 
hugged  the  rock  cliff  for  shelter,  but  the  mortality  on  the  cross- 
ing boats  was  terrible  ;  and  each  passage  carried  back  quota  of 
wounded.  Van  Rensselaer  was  shot  in  the  thigh  almost  as  he 
landed,  but  still  he  held  his  men  in  hand.  A  second  shot  pierced 
the  same  side.  A  third  struck  his  knee.  Six  wounds  he  received 
in  as  many  seconds  ;  and  he  was  carried  back  in  the  boats  to  the 
Lewiston  side.   Then  beiran  a  mad  scramble  through  the  darkness 


OKNERAL   BROCK 


346  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

up  a  fisherman's  path  steep  as  trail  of  mountain  goat,  sheer 
against  the  face  of  the  cliff.  When  clay  dawned  misty  and  gray 
over  the  black  tide  of  the  rolling  river,  the  Canadian  batterymen 
of  Queenston  Heights  were  astounded  to  see  American  sharp- 
shooters mustered  on  the  cliff  behind  and  above  them.  A 
quick  rush,  and  the  Canadian  batterymen  were  driven  from 
their  ground,  the  Canadian  cannon  silenced,  and  while  wild 
shoutings  of  triumph  rose  from  the  spectators  at  Lewiston,  the 
American  boats  continued  to  pour  soldiers  across  the  river. 

It  was  at  this  stage  Brock  came  riding  from  Fort  George  so 
spattered  with  mud  from  head  to  heel  he  was  not  recognized 
by  the  soldiers.  One  glance  was  enough.  The  Canadians  had 
lost  the  day.  Sending  messengers  to  bid  General  Sheaffe  hurry 
the  troops  from  Fort  George,  and  other  runners  to  bring  up  the 
troops  from  Chippewa  behind  the  Americans  on  Queenston 
Heights,  Brock  charged  up  the  hill  amid  shriek  of  bombs  and 
clatter  of  sharpshooters.  He  had  dismounted  and  was  scram- 
bling" over  a  stone  wall.  "Follow  me,  boys!  "  he  shouted  to  the 
British  grenadiers  ;  then  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  waving  his  sword: 
"Now  take  a  breath;  you  will  need  it !  Come  on  !  come  on  !"  and 
he  led  the  rush  of  two  hundred  men  in  scarlet  coats  to  dislodge 
the  Americans.  A  shot  pierced  his  wrist.  "  Push  on,  York  volun- 
teers," he  shouted.  His  portly  figure  in  scarlet  uniform  was 
easy  mark  for  the  sharpshooters  hidden  in  the  brush  of  Queens- 
ton Heights.  One  stepped  deliberately  out  and  took  aim. 
Though  a  dozen  Canadian  muskets  flashed  answer,  Brock  fell, 
shot  through  the  breast,  dying  with  the  words  on  his  lips,  "  My 
fall  must  not  be  noticed  to  stop  the  victory."  Major  Macdon- 
nell  led  in  the  charge  up  the  hill,  but  the  next  moment  his 
horse  plunged  frantically,  and  he  reeled  from  the  saddle  fatally 
wounded.  For  a  second  time  the  British  were  repulsed,  and  the 
Americans  had  won  the  Heights,  if  not  the  day. 

The  invaders  were  resting  on  their  arms,  snatching  a  breakfast 
of  biscuit  and  cheese  about  midday,  when  General  Sheaffe  ar- 
rived from  Fort  George  with  troops  breathless  from  running.  A 
heart-shattering  huzza  from  the  village  warned  the  Americans 


THE   SURRENDER  AT  QUEENSTON 


'A7 


that  help  had  come,  and  they  were  to  arms  in  a  second;  but 
Sheaffe  had  swept  round  the  Heights,  Indians  on  one  side  of  the 
hill,  soldiers  on  the  other,  and  came  on  the  surprised  Americans 
as  from  the  rear.  There  was  a  wild  whoop,  a  clash  up  the  hill,  a 
pause  to  fire,  when  the  air  was  splinted  by  nine  hundred  instan- 
taneous shots.  Then  through  the  smoke  the  British  rushed  the 
Heights  at  bayonet  point.  For  three  hours  the  contest  raged 
in  full  sight  of  Lewiston, 
a  hand-to-hand  butchery 
between  Sheaffe's  fresh 
fighters  and  the  Ameri- 
cans, who  had  been  on 
their  feet  since  midnight. 
Indian  tomahawk  played 
its  part,  but  it  is  a  ques- 
tion if  the  scalping  knife 
did  as  deadly  work  as 
the  grenadier's  long  bay- 
onets. Cooped  up  be- 
tween the  enemy  and  the 
precipice,  the  American 
sharpshooters  waited  for 
the  help  that  never  came. 
In  vain  Van  Rensselaer's 
officers  prayed  and  swore 
and  pleaded  with  the 
volunteer  troops  on  the 
Lewiston  side.   The  men 


BROCK    MONUMENT,    QUEENSTON   HEIGHTS 


flatly  refused  to  cross  ;  for  boat  loads  of  mangled  bodies  were 
brought  back  at  each  passage.  Discipline  fell  to  pieces.  It  was 
the  old  story  of  volunteers,  brave  enough  at  a  spurt,  going  to 
pieces  in  panic  under  hard  and  continued  strain.  Driven  from 
Queenston  Heights,  the  invaders  fought  their  way  down  the  cliff 
path  by  inches  to  the  water  side,  and  there  .  .  .  there  were  no 
boats  !  Pulling  off  his  white  necktie,  an  officer  held  it  up  on  the 
point  of  his  sword  as  signal  of  surrender.    It  was  one  of  the  most 


348  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

gallant  fights  on  both  sides  in  Canadian  history,  though  officers 
over  on  the  Lewiston  shore  were  crying  like  boys  at  the  sight 
of  nine  hundred  Americans  surrendering. 

Truce  was  then  arranged  for  the  burial  of  the  dead.  The 
bodies  of  Brock  and  Macdonnell  were  laid  on  a  gun  wagon  and 
conveyed  between  lines  of  sorrowing  soldiers,  with  arms  reversed, 
to  the  burial  place  outside  Fort  George.  As  the  regimental 
music  rang  out  the  last  march  of  the  two  dead  officers,  minute 
guns  were  fired  in  sympathy  all  along  the  American  shore. 
"  He  would  have  done  as  much  for  us,"  said  the  American 
officers  of  the  gallant  Brock. 

Van  Rensselaer  at  once  resigns.  "Proclamation "  Smyth,  whose 
addresses  resemble  Fourth  of  July  backwoods  orations,  succeeds 
as  commander  of  the  American  army ;  but  "  Proclamation"  Smyth 
makes  such  a  mess  of  a  raid  on  Fort  Erie,  retreating  with  a  haste 
suggestive  of  Hull  at  Detroit,  that  he  is  mobbed  when  he  returns 
to  the  United  States  shore.  But  what  the  United  States  lose 
by  land,  they  retrieve  by  sea.  England's  best  ships  are  engaged 
in  the  great  European  war.  From  June  to  December,  United 
States  vessels  sweep  the  sea ;  but  this  is  more  a  story  of  the 
English  navy  than  of  Canada.  The  year  of  1812  closes  with  the 
cruisers  of  Lake  Ontario  chasing  each  other  through  many  a 
wild  snowstorm. 

As  the  year  18 12  proved  one  of  jubilant  victory  for  Canada, 
so  18 13  was  to  be  one  of  black  despair.  With  the  exception  of 
four  brilliant  victories  wrested  in  the  very  teeth  of  defeat,  the 
year  passes  down  to  history  as  one  of  the  darkest  in  the  annals 
of  the  country.  The  population  of  the  United  States  at  this 
time  was  something  over  seven  millions,  and  it  was  not  to  be 
thought  for  one  moment  that  a  nation  of  this  strength  would 
remain  beaten  off  the  field  by  the  little  province  of  Ontario 
(Upper  Canada)  ,  whose  population  numbered  barely  ninety 
thousand.  General  Harrison  hurries  north  from  the  Wabash 
with  from  six  to  eight  thousand  men  to  retrieve  the  defeat  of 
Detroit.    At  Presqu'  Isle,  on  Lake  Erie,  hammer  and  mallet  and 


1813   A   DARK  YEAR  349 

forging  iron  are  heard  all  winter  preparing  the  fleet  for  Commo- 
dore Perry  that  is  to  command  Lake  Erie  and  the  Upper  Lakes 
for  the  Americans.  At  Sackett's  Harbor  similar  preparations 
are  under  way  on  a  fleet  for  Chauncey  to  sweep  the  English 
from  Lake  Ontario ;  and  all  along  both  sides  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence, as  winter  hedged  the  waters  with  ice,  lurk  scouts,  —  the 
Americans,  for  the  most  part,  uniformed  in  blue,  the  Canadians 
in  Lincoln  green  with  gold  braid,  —  watching  chance  for  raid 
and  counter  raid  during  the  winter  nights.  The  story  of  these 
thrilling  raids  will  probably  pass  into  the  shadowy  realm  of  leg- 
end handed  down  from  father  to  son,  for  few  of  them  have  been 
embodied  in  the  official  reports. 

From  being  hard  pressed  on  the  defensive,  Canada  has  sud- 
denly sprung  into  the  position  of  jubilant  victor,  and  if  Brock 
had  lived,  she  would  probably  have  followed  up  her  victories  by 
aggressive  invasion  of  the  enemy's  territory  ;  but  all  effort  was 
literally  paralyzed  by  the  timidity  and  vacillation  of  the  gov- 
ernor general,  Sir  George  Prevost.  Prevost's  one  idea  seems  to 
have  been  that  as  soon  as  the  obnoxious  embargo  laws  were 
revoked  by  England,  the  war  would  stop.  When  the  embargo 
was  revoked  and  the  armistice  of  midsummer  simply  termi- 
nated in  a  resumption  of  war,  this  idea  seems  to  have  been  suc- 
ceeded by  the  single  aim  to  hold  off  conclusions  with  the  United 
States  till  England  could  beat  Napoleon  and  come  to  the  rescue. 
All  winter  long  scouts  and  bold  spirits  among  the  volunteers 
craved  the  chance  to  raid  the  anchored  fleets  of  Lake  Ontario 
and  Lake  Erie,  but  Prevost  not  only  forbade  the  invasion  of  the 
enemy's  territory,  but  before  the  year  was  out  actually  advocated 
the  abandonment  of  Ontario.  If  his  advice  had  been  followed, 
it  is  no  idle  supposition  to  infer  that  the  fate  of  Ontario  would 
have  been  the  same  as  the  destiny  of  the  Ohio  and  Michigan. 

One  night  in  February  the  sentry  at  the  village  of  Brockville, 
named  after  the  dead  hero,  was  surprised  by  two  hundred  Amer- 
ican raiders  dashing  up  from  the  frozen  river  bed.  Before  bugles 
could  sound  to  arms,  jails  had  been  opened,  stores  looted,  houses 


350  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

plundered,  and  the  raiders  were  off  and  well  away  with  fifty-two 
prisoners  and  a  dozen  sleigh  loads  of  provisions.  Gathering- 
some  five  hundred  men  together  from  the  Kingston  region, 
M'Donnell  and  Jenkins  of  the  Glengarrys  prepared  to  be  re- 
venged. Cannon  were  hauled  out  on  the  river  from  the  little 
village  of  Prescott  to  cross  the  ice  to  Ogdensburg.  The  river 
here  is  almost  two  miles  wide,  and  as  it  was  the  23d  of  Feb- 
ruary, the  ice  had  become  rotten  from  the  sun  glare  of  the  com- 
ing spring.  As  the  cannon  were  drawn  to  mid-river,  though  it 
was  seven  in  the  morning,  the  ice  began  to  heave  and  crack  with 
dire  warning.  To  hesitate  was  death  ;  to  go  back  as  dangerous 
as  to  go  forward.  With  a  whoop  the  men  broke  from  quick 
march  to  a  run,  unsheathing  musket  and  fixing  bayonet  blades 
as  they  dashed  ahead  to  be  met  with  a  withering  cross  fire  as 
they  came  within  range  of  the  American  batteries.  In  places, 
the  suck  of  the  water  told  where  the  ice  had  given  behind.  Then 
bullets  were  peppering  the  river  bed  in  a  rain  of  fire,  Jenkins 
and  M'Donnell  to  the  fore,  waving  their  swords.  Then  bombs 
began  to  ricochet  over  the  ice.  If  the  range  of  the  Ogdens- 
burg cannon  had  been  longer,  the  whole  Canadian  force  might 
have  been  sunk  in  mid-river  ;  but  the  men  were  already  dashing 
up  the  American  shore  whooping  like  fiends  incarnate.  First  a 
grapeshot  caught  Jenkins'  left  arm,  and  it  hung  in  bloody  splin- 
ters. Then  a  second  shot  took  off  his  right  arm.  Still  he  dashed 
forward,  cheering  his  men,  till  he  dropped  in  his  tracks,  faint 
from  loss  of  blood.  No  answer  came  back  to  the  summons  to 
surrender,  and,  taking  possession  of  an  outer  battery,  the  Cana- 
dians turned  its  cannon  full  on  the  village.  Under  cover  of  the 
battery  fire,  and  their  own  cannon  now  in  position,  the  whole 
force  of  Canadians  immediately  rushed  the  town  at  bayonet 
point.  Now  the  bayonet  in  a  solid  phalanx  of  five  hundred  men 
is  not  a  pleasant  weapon  to  stand  up  against.  As  the  drill  ser- 
geants order,  you  not  only  stick  the  bayonet  into  your  enemy, 
but  you  turn  it  round  "to  let  the  air  in"  so  he  will  die;  and 
before  the  furious  onslaught  of  bayonets,  the  defenders  of  Og- 
densburg broke,  and  fled  for  the  woods.    Within  an  hour  the 


RAID   ON   OGDENSBURG  35  I 

Canadians  had  burnt  the  barracks,  set  fire  to  two  schooners  iced 
up,  and  come  off  with  loot  of  a  dozen  cannon,  stores  of  all  sorts, 
and  with  prisoners  to  the  number  of  seventy-four. 

The  ice  had  left  Lake  Ontario  early  this  year,  and  by  mid- 
April  Commander  Chauncey  slipped  out  of  Sackett's  Har- 
bor with  sixteen  vessels,  having  on  board  seventeen  hundred 
troops,  besides  the  crews.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  cap- 
ital of  Ontario  had  been  moved  from  Niagara  (Newark)  to  York 
(Toronto)  on  the  north  side  of  Lake  Ontario,  then  a  thriving 


-     I:    i     '     ' 


YORK    (TORONTO)    HARBOR 

village  of  one  thousand  souls  on  the  inner  shore  of  Humber  Bay. 
On  the  sand  reef  known  as  the  Island,  in  front  of  the  harbor,  had 
been  constructed  a  battery  with  cannon.  The  main  village  lay  east 
of  the  present  city  hall.  Westward  less  than  a  mile  was  Gov- 
ernment House,  on  the  site  of  the  present  residence.  Between 
Government  House  and  the  village  was  not  a  house  of  any  sort, 
only  a  wood  road  flanking  the  lake,  and  badly  cut  up  by  ravines. 
Just  west  of  Government  House,  and  close  to  the  water,  was  a 
blockhouse  or  tower  used  as  powder  magazine,  mounted  with 
cannon  to  command  the  landing  from  the  lake.  Some  accounts 
speak  of  yet  another  little  outer  battery  or  earthwork  farther 


352  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

westward.  North  of  the  Government  House  road,  or  what  is 
now  King  Street,  were  dense  woods.  General  Sheaffe,  who  had 
succeeded  Brock  at  Queenston  Heights,  chanced  to  be  in  Toronto 
in  April  with  some  six  hundred  men.  Just  where  the  snug  quar- 
ters of  the  Toronto  Hunt  Club  now  stand  you  may  look  out 
through  the  green  foliage  of  the  woods  fringing  the  high  cliffs 
of  Lake  Ontario,  and  there  lies  before  your  view  the  pure  sky- 
blue  surface  of  an  inland  sea  washing  in  waves  like  a  tide  to  the 
watery  edge  of  the  far  sky  line.  Early  in  the  morning  of  April  27 
a  forest  ranger,  dressed  in  the  customary  Lincoln  green,  was 
patrolling  the  forested  edge  of  Scarborough  Heights  above  the 
lake.  The  trees  had  not  yet  leafed  out,  but  were  in  that  vernal 
state  when  the  branches  between  earth  and  sky  take  on  the 
appearance  of  an  aerial  network  just  budding  to  light  and  color  ; 
and  in  the  ravines  still  lay  patches  of  the  winter  snow.  The 
morning  was  hazy,  warm,  odoriferous  of  coming  summer,  with 
not  a  breath  of  wind  stirring  the  water.  As  the  sun  came  up 
over  the  lake  long  lines  of  fire  shot  through  the  water  haze. 
Suddenly  the  scout  paused  on  his  parade.  Something  was  ad- 
vancing shoreward  through  the  mist,  advancing  in  a  circling  line 
like  the  ranks  of  wild  birds  flying  north,  with  a  lap  —  lap- — lap 
of  water  drip  and  a  rap  —  rap  —  rap  of  rowlocks  from  a  mul- 
titude of  sweeps.  The  next  instant  the  forest  rang  to  a  musket 
shot,  for  the  scout  had  discovered  Commodore  Chauncey's  fleet 
of  sixteen  vessels  being  towed  forward  by  rowers  through  a  dead 
calm.  The  musket  shot  was  heard  by  another  scout  nearer  the 
fort.  The  signal  was  repeated  by  another  shot,  and  another  for 
the  whole  twelve  miles,  till  General  Sheaffe,  sitting  smoking  a 
cigar  in  Government  House,  sprang  to  his  feet  and  rushed  out, 
followed  by  his  officers,  to  scan  the  harbor  of  Humber  Bay  from 
the  tops  of  the  fort  bastions.  Sure  enough  !  there  was  the  fleet, 
led  by  Chauncey's  frigate  with  twenty-four  cannon  poking  from 
its  sides,  a  string  of  rowboats  in  tow  behind  to  land  the  army, 
coming  straight  across  the  harbor  over  water  calm  as  silk.  It 
has  been  told  how  the  fleet  made  the  mistake  of  passing  beyond 
the  landing,  but   the  chances  are  the  mistake  was   intentional 


ATTACK   ON   TORONTO  353 

for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  the  cannon  of  the  fort  bastions.  At 
all  events  the  report  may  be  believed  that  the  most  of  Toronto 
people  forgot  to  go  back  to  breakfast  that  morning.  A  moment 
later  officers  were  on  top  of  the  bastion  towers,  directing  battery- 
men  to  take  range  for  their  cannon.  A  battalion  variously  given 
as  from  fifty  to  one  hundred,  along  with  some  Indians,  was  at 
once  dispatched  westward  to  ambush  the  Americans  landing. 
Another  division  was  posted  at  the  battery  beyond  Government 
House.  Sheaffe  saw  plainly  from  the  number  of  men  on  deck 
that  he  was  outnumbered  four  to  one,  and  the  flag  on  the  com- 
modore's boat  probably  told  him  that  General  Dearborn,  the 
commander  in  chief,  was  himself  on  board  to  direct  the  land 
forces.  Sheaffe  has  been  bitterly  blamed  for  two  things, — for  not 
invading  Niagara  after  the  victory  on  Queenston  Heights,  and 
for  his  conduct  at  Toronto.  He  now  withdrew  the  main  forces 
to  a  ravine  east  of  the  fort,  plainly  preparatory  for  retreat.  Not 
thus  would  Brock  have  acted. 

Meanwhile  time  has  worn  on  to  nine  o'clock.  The  American 
ships  have  anchored.  The  Canadian  cannon  are  sending  the 
bombs  skipping  across  the  water.  The  rowboats  are  transferring 
the  army  from  the  schooners,  and  the  ambushed  sharpshooters 
are  picking  the  bluecoats  off  as  they  step  from  ships  to  boats. 

"  By  the  powers  !  "  yells  Forsyth,  an  American  officer,  "  I 
can't  stand  seeing  this  any  longer.  Come  on,  boys  !  jump  into 
our  boats  !  "  and  he  bids  the  bugles  blow  till  the  echoes  are 
dancing  over  Humber  waters.  Dearborn  and  Chauncey  stay  on 
board.  Pike  leads  the  landing,  and  Chauncey's  cannon  set  such 
grape  and  canister  flying  through  the  woods  as  clear  out  those 
ambushed  shooters,  the  Indians  flying  like  scared  partridges, 
and  the  advance  is  made  along  Government  House  road  at  quick 
march.  Just  west  of  the  Government  House  battery  the  march- 
ers halt  to  send  forward  demand  for  surrender.  Firing  on  both 
sides  ceases.  The  smoke  clears  from  the  churned-up  waters  of 
the  bay,  and  Commander  Pike  has  seated  himself  on  an  old  can- 
non, when,  before  answer  can  come  back  to  the  demand,  a  fright- 
ful accident  occurs  that  upsets  all  plans.    Waiting  for  the  signal 


354  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

to  begin  firing  again,  a  batteryman  in  the  near  bastion  was  hold- 
ing the  lighted  fuse  in  his  right  hand,  ready  for  the  cannon,  when 
something  distracted  his  attention,  and  he  wheeled  with  the 
lighted  match  behind  him.  It  touched  a  box  of  explosives.  If 
any  proof  were  needed  that  the  tragedy  was  not  designed,  it  is 
to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  English  officers  were  still  on  the 
roof  of  the  blockhouse,  and  the  apartment  below  crowded  with 
Canadians.  A  roar  shook  the  earth.  A  cloud  of  black  flame 
shot  into  mid-air,  and  the  next  minute  the  ground  for  half  a  mile 
about  was  strewn  with  the  remains,  mangled  to  a  pulp,  of  more 
than  three  hundred  men,  ninety  of  whom  were  Canadians,  two 
hundred  and  sixty  Americans,  including  Brigadier  Pike  fatally 
wounded  by  a  rock  striking  his  head.  In  the  horror  of  the  next 
few  moments,  defense  was  forgotten.  Wheelbarrows,  trucks, 
gun  wagons,  were  hurried  forward  to  carry  wounded  and  dead  to 
the  hospital.  Leaving  his  officers  to  arrange  the  terms  of  sur- 
render, at  2  p.m.  Sheaffe  retreated  at  quick  march  for  Kings- 
ton, pausing  only  to  set  fire  to  a  half-built  ship  and  some  naval 
stores.  Lying  on  a  stretcher  on  Chauncey's  ship,  Pike  is  roused 
from  unconsciousness  by  loud  huzzas. 
"  What  is  it  ?  "  he  asks. 

"  They  are  running  up  the  stars  and  stripes,  sir." 
A  smile  passed  over  Pike's  face.  When  the  surgeon  looked 
again,  the  commander  was  dead.  For  twenty-four  hours  the 
haggle  went  on  as  to  terms  of  capitulation.  Within  that  time, 
two  or  three  things  occurred  to  inflame  the  invading  troops. 
They  learned  that  Sheaffe  had  slipped  away ;  as  the  American 
general's  report  put  it,  "  They  got  the  shell,  but  the  kernel  of 
the  nut  got  away."  They  learned  that  stores  had  been  destroyed 
after  the  surrender  had  been  granted.  Without  more  restraint, 
and  in  defiance  of  orders,  the  American  troops  gave  themselves 
up  to  plunder  all  that  night.  In  their  rummaging  through  the 
Parliament  buildings  they  found  hanging  above  the  Speaker's  chair 
what  Canadian  records  declare  was  a  wig,  what  American  re- 
ports say  was  a  human  scalp  sent  in  by  some  ranger  from  the 
west.    From  what  I  have  read  in  the  private  papers  of  fur  traders 


TORONTO   BURNED  355 

in  that  period  regarding  international  scalping,  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  wig  may  have  been  an  American  scalp.  Certainly, 
the  fur  traders  of  Michilimackinac  wrapped  no  excuses  round 
their  savagery  when  the  canoes  all  over  the  coasts  of  Lake  Supe- 
rior, in  lieu  of  flags,  had  American  scalps  flaunting  from  their 
prows.  At  all  events,  word  went  out  that  an  American  scalp 
had  been  found  above  the  Speaker's  chair.  It  was  night.  The 
troops  were  drunk  with  success  and  perhaps  with  the  plunder 
of  the  wine  shops.  All  that  night  and  all  the  next  day  and 
night  the  skies  were  alight  with  the  flames  of  Toronto's  public 
buildings  on  fire.  Also,  the  army  chest  with  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars in  gold,  which  Sheaffe  had  forgotten,  was  dug  up  on  pain 
of  the  whole  town  being  fired  unless  the  money  were  delivered. 
Private  houses  were  untouched.  Looted  provisions  which  the 
fleet  cannot  carry  away,  Chauncey  orders  distributed  among  the 
poor.  Then,  leaving  some  four  hundred  prisoners  on  parole  not 
to  serve  again  during  the  war,  Chauncey  sails  away  for  Niagara. 

It  is  a  month  later.  Down  at  Fort  George  on  the  Canadian 
side  General  Vincent  knows  well  what  has  happened  at  Toronto 
and  is  on  the  lookout  for  the  enemy's  fleet.  On  the  American 
side  of  the  Niagara  River,  from  Lake  Ontario  to  Lake  Erie,  are 
seven  thousand  troops  eager  to  wipe  out  the  stain  of  last  year's 
defeat.  On  the  Canadian  side,  from  Fort  George  to  Chippewa 
and  Erie,  are  twenty-three  hundred  men,  mostly  volunteers  from 
surrounding  farms,  and  powder  is  scarce  and  provisions  are 
scarce,  for  Chauncey's  fleet  has  cut  off  help  from  St.  Lawrence 
and  Kingston  way.  All  the  last  two  weeks  of  May,  heavy  hot 
fog  lay  on  the  lake  and  on  the  river  between  the  hostile  lines, 
but  there  was  no  mistaking  what  Chauncey's  fleet  was  about. 
Red-hot  shot  showers  on  Fort  George  in  a  perfect  rain.  Stand- 
ing on  the  other  side  of  the  river  are  thousands  of  spectators, 
among  them  one  grand  old  swashbuckler  fellow  in  a  cocked  hat, 
whose  fighting  days  are  past,  taking  snuff  after  the  fashion  of  a 
former  generation  and  wearing  an  air  of  grand  patronage  to  the 
American  troops  because  he  has  seen  service  in  Europe. 


356  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

"  No,  sir,"  says  the  grand  old  righting  cock  pompously  to  his 
auditors,  "  can't  be  done  !  Have  seen  it  tried  on  the  Continent, 
and  you  can't  do  it  !  Lay  a  wager  you  can't  do  it  !  Can't  pos- 
sibly set  fire  to  a  fort  by  red-hot  shot  !  " 

Then  at  night  time,  when  the  lurid  glare  of  flame  lights  up  the 
foggy  darkness,  the  old  gentleman  is  put  to  his  trumps.  "  See  !  " 
the)'  say  ;  "  Fort  George  is  on  fire  ";  and  over  at  Fort  George 
the  bucket  brigade  works  hard  as  the  cannoneers.  But  the  fog  is 
too  good  a  chance  to  be  missed  by  Chauncey  ;  rowing  out  with 
muffled  oars  all  the  nights  of  May  24  and  25,  he  has  his  men 
sounding  .  .  .  sounding  .  .  .  sounding  in  silence  the  channel, 
right  within  pistol  shot  of  Fort  George.  The  night  of  the  26th 
troops  and  marines  are  bidden  breakfast  at  two  in  the  morning, 
and  be  ready  for  action  with  a  single  blanket  and  rations  for  one 
day.  That  is  all  they  are  told.  They  embark  at  four.  The  waters 
are  dead  calm,  the  morning  of  the  27th  gray  as  wool  with  fog. 
Sweeps  out  Chauncey's  fleet,  circles  up  to  Fort  George  with  one 
hundred  scows  in  tow,  carrying  fifty  soldiers  each.  Vincent  takes 
his  courage  in  his  teeth  and  gathers  his  one  thousand  men  inside 
the  walls.  Then  the  cannon  of  the  frigates  split  fog  and  air  and 
earth,  and,  under  cover  of  the  fire,  the  scows  gain  the  land  by 
9  a.m.  First,  Vincent's  sharpshooters  sally  from  the  fort  and 
fire  ;  then  they  fire  from  the  walls  ;  then  they  overturn  guns,  re- 
treat from  the  walls,  throw  what  powder  they  cannot  carry  into 
the  water,  and  retreat,  fighting,  behind  stone  walls  and  ditches. 
The  contest  of  one  thousand  against  six  thousand  is  hopeless. 
Vincent  sends  coureurs  riding  like  the  wind  to  Chippewa  and 
Queenston  and  Erie,  ordering  the  Canadians  to  retire  to  the 
Back  Country.  By  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  Americans  are 
in  possession  of  the  Canadian  side  from  Fort  George  to  Erie.  Vin- 
cent retreats  at  quick  march  along  the  lake  shore  towards  what 
is  now  Hamilton.  June  1  General  Dearborn  sends  his  officers, 
Chandler  and  Winder,  in  hot  pursuit  with  thirty-five  hundred  men. 

Vincent's  soldiers  have  less  than  ninety  rounds  of  powder  to 
a  man.    He  has  only  one   thousand  men,  for  the  garrisons  of 


VINCENT'S  SOLDIERS  AT  BURLINGTON   BAY 


.57 


Chippewa  and  Queenston  Heights  and  Erie  have  fallen  back  in 
a  circle  to  the  region  of  St.  David's  June  5,  Vincent's  Cana- 
dians are  in  camp  at  Burlington  Bay.  Only  seven  miles  away, 
at  Stony  Creek,  lies  the  American  army,  out  sentries  posted  at 
a  church,  artillery  on  a  height  commanding  a  field,  officers  and 
men  asleep  in  the  long  grass.  Humanly  speaking,  nothing  could 
prevent  a  decisive  battle  the  next  day.  The  two  American 
officers,  Chandler  and  Winder,  sit  late  into  the  night,  candles 
alight  over  camp  stools,  mapping  out  what  they  think  should  be 
the  campaign.  It  is  a  hot  night,  —  muggy,  with  June  showers, 
lighted  up  by  an  occasional 
flash  of  sheet  lightning. 
Then  all  candles  out,  and 
pitch  darkness,  and  silence 
as  of  a  desert !  The  Ameri- 
can army  is  asleep, —  in  the 
dead  sleep  of  men  exhausted 
from  long,  hard,  swift  march- 
ing. The  artillerymen  on  the 
hillocks,  the  sentries,  the 
outposts  at  the  church,  ■ — 
they,  too,  are  sound  asleep  ! 
But  the  Canadians,  too, 
know  that,  humanly  speak- 
ing, nothing  can  prevent  a 

decisive  battle  on  the  morrow.  The  stories  run  —  I  do  not 
vouch  for  their  truth,  though  facts  seem  to  point  to  some  such 
explanation  —  that  Harvey,  a  Canadian  officer,  had  come  back 
to  the  American  army  that  night  disguised  as  a  Quaker  peddling 
potatoes,  and  noted  the  unguarded  condition  of  the  exhausted 
troops;  also  that  Fitzgibbons,  the  famous  scout,  came  through 
the  American  lines  dressed  as  a  rustic  selling  butter.  Whether 
these  stories  are  true  or  not,  or  whether,  indeed,  the  Canadians 
knew  anything  about  the  American  camp,  they  plucked  resolu- 
tion from  desperation.  If  they  waited  for  the  morrow's  battle, 
they  would  be  beaten.    Harvey  proposed  to  Vincent  that  seven 


HTZOIBBOXS 


358  CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

hundred  picked  men  go  back  through  the  dark  and  raid  the 
American  camp.  Vincent  left  the  entire  matter  to  Harvey. 
Setting  out  at  11.30  along  what  is  now  Main  Street,  Hamilton, 
the  Canadians  marched  in  perfect  silence.  Harvey  had  given 
orders  that  not  a  shot  should  be  fired,  not  a  word  spoken,  the 
bayonet  alone  to  be  used.  By  two  in  the  morning  of  June  6  the 
marchers  came  to  the  church  where  the  sentries  were  posted. 
Two  were  stabbed  to  death  before  they  awakened.  The  third 
was  compelled  to  give  the  password,  then  bayoneted  in  turn. 
The  Canadian  raiders  might  have  come  to  the  very  midst  of  the 
American  army  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  jubilant  hilarity  of 
some  young  officers,  who,  capturing  a  cannon,  uttered  a  wild 
huzza.  On  the  instant,  bugles  sounded  alarm  ;  drums  beat  a 
crazy  tattoo,  and  every  man  leaped  from  his  place  in  the  grass, 
hand  on  pistol.  The  next  second  the  blackness  of  the  night  was 
ablaze  with  musketry ;  the  soldiers  were  firing  blindly  ;  officers 
were  shouting  orders  that  nobody  heard  ;  troops  were  dashing 
here,  there,  everywhere,  lost  in  the  darkness,  the  heavy  artillery 
horses  breaking  tether  ropes  and  stampeding  over  the  field. 
Major  Plenderleath  with  a  company  of  young  Canadians  suddenly 
found  himself  in  the  midst  of  the  American  camp.  One  of  the 
young  raiders  stabbed  seven  Americans  to  death  ;  a  brother 
bayoneted  four,  and  before  daylight  betrayed  the  smallness  of 
their  forces  the  raiders  came  safely  off  with  three  guns  and  one 
hundred  prisoners,  including  the  two  American  officers,  Winder 
and  Chandler.  The  loss  to  the  British  was  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
killed  and  wounded  ;  but  there  would  be  no  battle  the  next  day. 
The  battle  of  Stony  Creek  sent  the  Americans  retreating  back 
down  the  lake  front  to  Fort  George,  harried  by  the  English  fleet 
under  Sir  James  Yeo  from  Kingston.  A  hundred  episodes 
might  be  related  of  the  Stony  Creek  raid.  For  years  it  was  to 
be  the  theme  of  camp-fire  yarns.  For  instance,  in  the  flare  of 
musketry  fire  a  Canadian  found  himself  gazing  straight  along 
the  blade  of  an  American's  bayonet.  "  Sir,  the  password,"  de- 
manded the  American  sentry.  Luckily  the  scout,  instead  of 
wearing  an  English  red  coat,  had  on  a  blue  jacket  resembling 


ILL  HAP  OF  ALL  THE  GENERALS  359 

that  of  the  American  marines,  and  he  instantly  took  his  cue. 
"Rascal,"  he  thundered  back,  "  what  do  you  mean,  off  your  line? 
Go  back  to  your  post!"  The  sentry's  bayonet  dropped;  there 
was  momentary  darkness,  and  the  Canadian  literally  bolted. 
Then  ludicrous  ill  luck  befell  all  the  generals.  Vincent  had  ac- 
companied the  raiders  on  horseback.  When  the  bugles  sounded 
"retire,"  he  gave  his  horse  the  bit,  and  in  the  pitch  darkness 
the  brute  carried  him  pellmell  along  the  wrong  road,  over  fences 
and  hayhekls,  some  fifteen  miles  into  the  Back  Country.  Next 
day,  when  Vincent  was  missing,  under  flag  of  truce  messengers 
went  to  the  retreating  American  army  to  find  if  he  were  among 
the  dead.  At  four  in  the  afternoon  his  horse  came  limping  into 
the  Canadian  camp.  Chandler,  the  American  officer,  on  awaken- 
ing had  sprung  on  horseback  and  spurred  over  the  field  shouting 
commands.  In  the  darkness  his  horse  fell  and  threw  him.  When 
Chandler  came  to  himself  he  was  prisoner  among  the  Canadians. 
Winder's  ill  luck  was  equally  bad.  By  the  flare  of  the  firing  he 
saw  what  he  thought  was  a  group  of  artillerymen  deserting  a 
gun.  Dashing  up,  he  laid  about  him  with  his  pistol,  shouting, 
"  Come  on  !  come  on  !  "  Another  flare  of  fire,  and  he  found 
himself  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  Canadian  bayonets.  "  Drop 
your  pistol,  sir,  or  you  are  a  dead  man,"  ordered  a  young  Cana- 
dian, and  Winder  surrendered. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  the  garrisons  of  Queenston  below  the 
Falls,  and  Chippewa  above,  and  Erie  at  the  head  of  the  river, 
had  retreated  from  the  invading  Americans  to  the  Back  Country 
now  traversed  by  Welland  Canal.  From  different  posts  beyond 
what  was  known  as  the  Black  Swamp,  these  bands  of  the  dis- 
persed Canadian  army  swooped  down  on  the  American  outposts, 
harrying  the  whole  American  line  from  Lake  Ontario  to  Lake 
Erie.  Of  all  the  raiders  none  was  more  daring  than  Lieutenant 
Fitzgibbons,  posted  beyond  the  Beaver  Dams,  at  a  stone  house 
near  De  Ceu's  Falls.  Space  forbids  more  than  one  episode  of 
his  raids.  Once,  while  riding  along  Lundy's  Lane  alone,  he  was 
recognized  by  the  wife  of  a  Canadian  captain,  who  dashed  from 


360  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

the  cottage,  warning  him  to  retreat,  as  a  hundred  and  fifty 
Americans  had  just  passed  that  way.  Standing  in  front  of  the 
roadside  inn  was  the  cavalry  horse  of  an  American.  Fitzgibbons 
could  n't  resist  the  temptation  for  a  bout  with  the  foe,  and  dis- 
mounting, was  entering  the  door  when  a  soldier  in  blue  dashed 
at  him  with  leveled  musket.  Naturally  not  keen  to  create  alarm, 
Fitzgibbons  knocked  the  weapon  from  the  man's  hand,  and  with- 
out a  sound  had  thrown  him  on  the  ground,  when  another  Amer- 
ican rifleman  dashed  from  behind.  Strong  as  a  lion,  Fitzgibbons 
threw  the  first  man  violently  against  the  second,  and  was  hold- 
ing both  at  bay  beneath  his  leveled  rifle  when  one  of  the  downed 
men  snatched  the  Irishman's  sword  from  the  scabbard.  He  was 
in  the  very  act  of  thrusting  the  sword  point  into  Fitzgibbons, 
when  the  innkeeper's  wife,  with  a  dexterous  kick,  sent  the 
weapon  whirling  out  of  his  hand.  Fitzgibbons  disarmed  the  men, 
tied  them,  threw  them  across  his  horse,  and  himself  mounting, 
galloped  to  the  woods  with  a  laugh,  though  one  hundred  and  fifty 
Americans  were  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 

The  American  commanders  at  Niagara  determined  to  clean 
out  this  nest  of  raiders  from  the  Back  Country,  and  Lieutenant 
Boerstler  was  ordered  to  march  from  Fort  George  with  some 
six  hundred  men.  Leaving  Fort  George  secretly  at  night, 
Boerstler  came  to  Queenston  at  eleven  on  the  night  of  June  23. 
Here  all  Canadian  soldiers  free  on  parole  were  seized,  to  pre- 
vent word  of  the  attack  reaching  the  Back  Country.  The  troops 
were  not  even  permitted  to  light  camp  fire  or  candles.  The 
great  secrecy  of  the  American  marchers  at  once  roused  suspicion 
among  the  Canadians  between  Queenston  and  the  village  of 
St.  David's  that  the  expedition  was  directed  against  Fitzgibbons' 
scouts.  At  his  home,  between  Queenston  and  St.  David's,  dwelt 
a  United  Empire  Loyalist,  James  Secord,  recovering  from  dan- 
gerous wounds  received  in  the  battle  of  Queenston  Heights.  He 
was  too  weak  himself  to  go  by  night  and  forewarn  Fitzgibbons, 
but  his  wife,  Laura  Ingersoll,  a  woman  of  some  thirty  years, 
was  also  of  the  old  United  Empire  Loyalist  stock.  She  imme- 
diately set  out  alone  for  the  Back  Country  to  warn  Fitzgibbons. 


LAURA  SECORD'S   HEROISM 


361 


Many  and  contradictory  stories  are  told  of  her  march.  Whether 
she  tramped  two  nights  and  two  days,  or  only  one  night  and  one 
day,  whether  her  march  led  her  twenty  or  only  twelve  miles, 
matters  little.  She  succeeded  in  passing  the  first  sentry  on  the 
excuse  she  was  going  out  to  milk  a  cow,  and  she  eluded  a  sec- 
ond by  telling  him  she  wished  to  visit  a  wounded  brother,  which 
was  true.  Then  she  struck  away  from  the  beaten  path  through 
what  was  known  as  the 
Black  Swamp.  It  had 
rained  heavily.  The  ce- 
dar woods  were  soggy 
with  moisture,  the  swamp 
swollen,  and  the  streams 
running  a  mill  race. 
Through  the  summer  heat, 
through  the  windfall,  over 
the  quaking  forest  bog, 
tramped  Laura  Secord. 
It  may  be  supposed  that 
the  most  of  wild  animals 
had  been  frightened  from 
the  woods  by  the  heavy 
cannonading  for  almost 
a  year ;  but  the  hoot  of 
screech  owl,  the  eldritch 
scream  of   wild  cat,  the 

far  howl  of  the  wolf  pack  hanging  on  the  trail  of  the  armies  for 
carrion,  were  not  sounds  quieting  to  the  nerves  of  a  frightened 
woman  flitting  through  the  forest  by  moonlight.  It  was  clear 
moonlight  when  she  came  within  range  of  Beaver  Dam  and  De 
Ceu's  house.  She  had  just  emerged  in  an  open  field  when  she 
was  assailed  with  unearthly  yells,  and  a  thousand  ambushed 
Indians  rose  from  the  grass. 

"  Woman  !  A  woman  !  What  does  a  white  woman  here  ?  " 
demanded  the  chief,  seizing  her  arm.  She  answered  that  she 
was  a  friend  and  it  was  matter  of  life  and  death  for  her  to  see 


LAl'KA    SKCORD 


362  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Fitzgibbons  at  once.  So  Laura  Secord  delivered  her  warning  and 
saved  the  Canadian  army.  The  episode  has  gone  down  to  history- 
one  of  the  national  legends,  like  the  story  of  Madeline  Vercheres 
on  the  St.  Lawrence.  Fitzgibbons  posts  his  forty  men  in  place, 
and  Ducharme,  commander  of  the  Indians,  scatters  his  one  thou- 
sand redskins  in  ambush  along  the  trail.  Also,  word  is  sent  for 
two  other  detachments  to  come  with  all  speed. 

June  24,  at  seven  in  the  morning,  Boerstler  is  moving  along  a 
narrow  forest  trail  through  the  beech  woods  of  Beaver  Dams. 
The  men  are  advancing  single  file,  mounted  infantrymen  first 
with  muskets  slouched  across  saddle  pommels,  then  the  heavy 
wagons,  then  cavalry  to  rear.  The  timber  is  heavy,  the  trail 
winding.  Here  the  long  line  deploys  out  from  the  trail  to  avoid 
jumping  windfall ;  there  halt  is  made  to  cut  a  way  for  the 
wagons  ;  then  the  long  line  moves  sleepily  forward,  yellow  sun- 
light shafted  through  the  green  foliage  across  the  riders'  blue 
uniforms.  Suddenly  a  shot  rings  out,  and  another,  and  another  ! 
The  forest  is  full  of  unseen  foes,  before,  behind,  on  all  sides,  the 
cavalry  forces  breaking  rank  and  clashing  forward  among  the 
wagons.  Boerstler  sees  it  will  be  as  unsafe  to  retreat  as  to  go  on. 
Sending  messengers  back  to  Fort  George  for  aid,  he  pushes  for- 
ward into  an  open  wheat  field.  Fifty-six  men  have  fallen,  and 
the  bullets  are  still  raining  from  an  invisible  foe.  Looking  back 
he  sees  mounted  men  in  green  coats  passing  and  repassing  across 
his  trail,  filing  and  refiling.  It  is  a  trick  of  Fitzgibbons  to  give 
an  impression  he  has  ten  times  forty  men,  but  the  Americans 
do  not  know.  There  is  no  retreat,  and  Indians  are  to  the  fore. 
In  the  midst  of  confusion  Fitzgibbons  comes  forward  with  a 
white  handkerchief  on  his  sword  point  and  begs  Boerstler  to 
prevent  bloodshed  by  instant  surrender.  Boerstler  demands  to 
see  the  number  of  his  enemies.  Fitzgibbons  says  he  will  repeat 
the  request  to  his  commanding  officer.  Luck  is  with  Fitzgibbons, 
for  just  as  he  goes  back  a  small  party  of  reinforcements  arrives, 
and  one  of  its  captains  acts  the  part  of  commanding  officer, 
telling  Boerstler's  messenger  haughtily  that  the  demand  to  see 
the  enemy  is  an  insult,  and  answer  must  be  given  in  five  minutes 


CAMPAIGN   IN   THE  WEST  363 

or  the  Canadians  will  not  be  responsible  for  the  Indians.  The 
fight  has  lasted  three  hours.  Boerstler  surrenders  with  his  entire 
force.    Such  was  the  battle  of  Beaver  Dams. 

Ever  since  Brock  had  captured  Detroit  in  18 12,  General 
Procter,  with  twenty-five  hundred  Canadians,  had  been  holding 
the  western  part  of  Ontario ;  and  the  defeat  of  the  English  at 
Fort  George  had  placed  him  in  a  desperate  position.  His  men  had 
been  without  pay  for  months  ;  their  clothes  were  in  tatters,  and 
now,  with  the  Americans  in  possession  of  Niagara  region,  there 
was  danger  of  Procter's  food  supply  being  cut  off.  Procter  him- 
self had  not  been  idle  these  six  months.  In  fact,  he  had  been  too 
active  for  the  good  of  his  supplies.  Space  forbids  a  detailed  ac- 
count of  the  raids  directed  by  him  and  carried  out  with  the  aid 
of  Tecumseh,  the  great  Shawnee  chief.  January  of  18 13  saw  a 
detachment  of  Procter's  men  up  Raisin  River,  west  of  Detroit, 
where  they  defeated  General  Winchester  and  captured  nearly 
five  hundred  prisoners,  to  be  set  free  on  parole.  Harrison,  the 
American  general,  is  on  his  way  to  Lake  Erie  to  rescue  Detroit. 
Procter  hastens  in  May  to  meet  him  with  one  thousand  Canadians 
and  fifteen  hundred  Indians.  The  clash  takes  place  at  a  barri- 
cade known  as  Fort  Meigs  on  Maumee  River,  south  of  Lake 
Erie,  when  again,  by  the  aid  of  Tecumseh,  Procter  captures 
four  hundred  and  fifty  prisoners.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that 
the  Indians  broke  from  control  and  tomahawked  forty  defense- 
less American  prisoners.  August  sees  Procter  raiding  Sandusky; 
but  the  Americans  refuse  to  come  out  and  battle,  and  the  axes 
of  the  Canadians  are  too  dull  to  cut  down  the  ironwood  pickets, 
and  when  at  night  Procter's  bugles  sound  retreat,  he  has  lost 
nearly  one  hundred  men.  At  last,  in  September,  the  fleets  being 
built  for  the  Canadians  at  Amherstburg  and  for  the  Americans 
at  Presqu'  Isle  are  completed.  Whichever  side  commands  Lake 
Erie  will  control  supplies ;  and  though  Captain  Barclay,  the 
Canadian,  is  short  of  men,  Procter  cannot  afford  to  delay  the 
contest  for  supremacy  any  longer.  He  orders  Barclay  to  sail  out 
and  seek  Commodore  Perry,  the  American,  for  decisive  battle. 


;64 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


On  Barclay's  boats  are  only  such  old  land  guns  as  had  been 
captured  from  Detroit.  His  crews  consist  of  lake  sailors  and 
a  few  soldiers,  in  all  some  three  hundred  and  eighty-four  men 
on  six  vessels.  September  10,  at  midday,  at  Put-in-Bay,  Barclay 
finds  Perry's  fleet  of  seven  vessels  with  six  hundred  and  fifty 
men.     For  two  hours  the  furious  cannonading  could  be  heard 

all  the  way  up 
to  Amherst- 
burg.  Space 
forbids  details 
of  the  fight  so 
celebrated  in 
the  annals  of 
the  American 
navy.  After 
broadsides  that 
tore  hulls  clean 
of  masts  and 
decks,  setting 
sails  in  flame 
and  the  waters 
seething  in 
mountainous 
waves,  the  two 
fleets  got  with- 
in pistol  shot 
of  each  other, 
and  Perry's 
superior  num- 
bers won.  One  third  of  Barclay's  officers  were  killed  and  one 
third  of  his  men.  The  Canadian  fleet  on  Lake  Erie  was  literally 
exterminated  before  three  in  the  afternoon. 

Procter's  position  was  now  doubly  desperate.  He  was  cut  off 
from  supplies.  At  a  council  with  the  Indians,  though  Tecum- 
seh,  the  chief,  was  for  fighting  to  the  bitter  death,  it  was  de- 
cided to  retreat  up  the  Thames  to  Vincent's  army  near  modern 


St.    ri'.KHTS   Vi  CTORY, 


TWO    VIEWS    OF    THE    RATTLE    ON    LAKE    ERIE 
(From  prints  published  in  1815) 


MORAVIANTOWN    DISASTER  365 

Hamilton.  All  the  world  knows  the  bitter  end  of  that  retreat. 
Procter  seems  to  have  been  so  sure  that  General  Harrison  would 
not  follow,  that  the  Canadian  forces  did  not  even  pause  to  destroy 
bridges  behind  them  ;  and  behind  came  Harrison,  hot  foot,  with 
four  thousand  fighters  from  the  Kentucky  backwoods.  October 
first  the  Canadians  had  retreated  far  as  Chatham,  provisions 
and  baggage  coming  in  boats  or  sent  ahead  on  wagons. 
Procter's  first  intimation  of  the  foe's  nearness  was  a  breathless 
messenger  with  word  the  Americans  just  a  few  miles  behind  had 
captured  the  provision  boats.  Sending  on  his  family  and  the 
women  with  a  convoy  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  soldiers,  Procter 
faced  about  on  the  morning  of  October  the  5th,  to  give  battle. 
On  the  left  was  the  river  Thames,  on  the  right  a  cedar  swamp, 
to  rear  on  the  east  the  Indian  mission  of  Moraviantown.  The 
troops  formed  in  line  across  a  forest  road.  Procter  seems  to 
have  lost  both  his  heart  and  his  head,  for  he  permitted  his  fatigued 
troops  to  go  into  the  fight  without  breakfast.  Not  a  barricade, 
not  a  hurdle,  not  a  log  was  placed  to  break  the  advance  of  Har- 
rison's cavalry.  The  American  riders  came  on  like  a  whirlwind. 
Crack  went  the  line  of  Procter's  men  in  a  musketry  volley  ! 
The  horses  plunged,  checked  up,  reared,  and  were  spurred  for- 
ward. Another  volley  from  the  Canadians  !  But  it  was  too  late. 
Harrison's  fifteen  hundred  riders  had  galloped  clean  through 
the  Canadian  lines,  slashing  swords  as  they  dashed  past.  Now 
they  wheeled  and  came  on  the  Canadians'  rear.  Indians  and 
Canadians  scattered  to  the  woods  before  such  fury,  like  harried 
rabbits,  poor  Tecumseh  in  the  very  act  of  tomahawking  an 
American  colonel  when  a  pistol  shot  brought  him  down.  The 
brave  Indian  chief  was  scalped  by  the  white  backwoodsmen  and 
skinned  and  the  body  thrown  into  the  woods  a  prey  to  wrolves. 
Flushed  with  victory  and  without  Harrison's  permission,  the 
Kentucky  men  dashed  in  and  set  fire  to  Moraviantown,  the  In- 
dian mission.  As  for  Procter,  he  had  mounted  the  fleetest  horse 
to  be  found,  and  was  riding  in  mad  flight  for  Burlington  Heights. 
It  is  almost  a  pity  he  had  not  fallen  in  some  of  his  former  heroic 
raids,  for  he  now  became  a  sorry  figure  in  history,  reprimanded 


366 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


and  suspended  from  the  ranks  of  the  army.  The  only  explana- 
tion of  Procter's  conduct  at  Moraviantown  is  that  he  was  anxious 
for  the  safety  of  his  wife  and  daughters,  perhaps  needlessly  fear- 
ing that  the  rough  backwoodsmen  would  retaliate  on  them  for  the 
treachery  of  the  Indians  tomahawking  American  prisoners  of  war. 
And  it  had  fared  almost  as  badly  with  the  Canadian  fleet 
on  Lake  Ontario.    The  boats  under  Sir  James  Yeo,  the  young 

English  commander,  were 
good  only  for  close-range 
fighting,  the  boats  under 
Commodore  Chauncey 
best  for  long-range  firing. 
All  July  and  August  the 
fleets  maneuvered  to 
catch  each  other  off  guard. 
Between  times  each  raided 
the  coast  of  the  other  for 
provisions,  Chauncey  pay- 
ing a  second  visit  to  To- 
ronto, Yeo  swooping  clown 
on  Sodus  Bay.  All  Sep- 
tember the  game  of  hide 
and  seek  went  on  between 
the  two  Ontario  squad- 
rons. Sunday  night,  the 
8th  of  September,  in  a 
gale,  two  of  Chauncey's 
ships  sank,  with  all  hands  but  sixteen.  Two  nights  later  in  a 
squally  wind,  by  the  light  of  the  moon,  two  more  of  his  slow  sail- 
ers, unable  to  keep  up  with  the  rest  of  the  fleet,  were  snapped  up 
by  the  English  off  Niagara  with  one  hundred  captives.  Again, 
on  September  27,  at  eight  in  the  evening,  six  miles  off  Toronto 
harbor,  Chauncey  came  up  with  the  English,  and  the  two  fleets 
poured  broadsides  into  each  other.  Then  Yeo's  crippled  brigs 
limped  into  Toronto  harbor,  while  Chauncey  sailed  gayly  off  to 
block  all  connection  with  Montreal  and  help  to  convoy  troops 


TECUMSKH 


CHRYSLER'S   FARM  367 

from  Niagara  down  the  St.  Lawrence  for  the  master  stroke  of 
the  year.  The  way  was  now  clear  for  the  twofold  aim  of  the 
American  staff,  —  to  starve  out  Ontario  and  concentrate  all 
strength  in  a  signal  attack  on  Montreal. 

The  autumn  campaign  was  without  doubt  marked  by  the  most 
comical  and  heroic  episodes  of  the  war.  Wilkinson  was  to  go  down 
the  St.  Lawrence  from  Lake  Ontario  with  eight  thousand  men 
to  join  General  Hampton  coming  by  the  way  of  Lake  Champlain 
with  another  five  thousand  men  in  united  attack  against  Montreal. 
November  5  Wilkinson's  troops  descended  in  three  hundred  flat- 
boats  through  the  Thousand  Islands,  now  bleak  and  leafless  and 
somber  in  the  gray  autumn  light.  It  seemed  hardly  possible  that 
the  few  Canadian  troops  cooped  up  in  Kingston  would  dare  to 
pursue  such  a  strong  American  force,  but  history  is  made  up  of 
impossibles.  Feeling  perfectly  secure,  Wilkinson's  troops  scat- 
tered on  the  river.  By  November  10,  at  nine  in  the  morning, 
half  the  Americans  had  run  down  the  rapids  of  the  Long  Sault, 
and  were  in  the  region  of  Cornwall,  pressing  forward  to  unite  with 
Hampton,  where  Chateauguay  River  came  into  Lake  St.  Louis, 
just  above  Montreal.  The  other  half  of  Wilkinson's  army  was 
above  the  Long  Sault,  near  Chrysler's  Farm.  From  the  outset 
the  rear  guard  of  the  advancing  invaders  had  been  harried  by 
Canadian  sharpshooters.  November  11,  about  midday,  it  was 
learned  that  a  Canadian  battalion  of  eight  hundred  was  pressing 
eagerly  on  the  rear.  Chance  shots  became  a  rattling  fusillade. 
Quick  as  flash  the  Americans  land  and  wheel  face  about  to  fight, 
posted  behind  a  stone  wall  and  along  a  dried  gully  with  shelter- 
ing cliffs  at  Chrysler's  Farm.  By  2.30  the  foes  are  shooting  at 
almost  hand-to-hand  range.  Then,  through  the  powder  smoke,  the 
Canadians  break  from  a  march  to  a  run,  and  charge  with  all 
the  dauntless  fury  of  men  fighting  for  hearth  and  home.  Before 
the  line  of  flashing  bayonets  the  invaders  break  and  run.  Two 
hundred  have  fallen  on  each  side  in  an  action  of  less  than  two 
hours.  Then  the  boats  go  on  down  to  the  other  half  of  the 
army  at  Cornwall,  and  here  is  worse  news, — news  that  sends 


368 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


Wilkinson's  army  back  to  the  American  side  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
without  attempting  attack  on  Montreal.  General  Hampton  on  his 
way  from  Lake  Champlain  has  been  totally  discomfited. 

Finding  the  way  to  the  St.  Lawrence  barred  by  the  old  raiders' 
trail  of  Richelieu  River,  Hampton  had  struck  across  westward 
from  Lake  Champlain  to  join  Wilkinson  on  the  St.  Lawrence, 
west   of   Montreal,  somewhere   near   the    road   of  Chateauguay 

River.  With  five  thou- 
sand infantry  and  one 
hundred  and  eighty  cav- 
alry he  has  advanced  to 
a  ford  beyond  the  fork  of 
Chateauguay.  Uncertain 
where  the  blow  would  be 
struck,  Canada's  governor 
had  necessarily  scattered 
his  meager  forces. 

To  oppose  advance  by 
the  Chateauguay  he  has 
sent  a  young  Canadian 
officer,  De  Salaberry,  with 
one  hundred  and  fifty 
French  Canadian  sharp- 
shooters and  one  hundred 
Indians.  De  Salaberry 
does  not  court  defeat  by 
neglecting  precautions  be- 
cause he  is  weak.  Windfall  is  hurriedly  thrown  up  as  barricade 
along  the  trail.  Where  the  path  narrows  between  the  river  and 
the  bleak  forest,  De  Salaberry  has  tree  trunks  laid  spike  end 
towards  the  foe.  At  the  last  moment  comes  McDonnell  of 
Brockville  with  six  hundred  men,  but  De  Salaberry's  three 
hundred  occupy  the  front  line  facing  the  ford.  McDonnell  is 
farther  along  the  river.  By  the  night  of  October  25  the  Amer- 
ican army  is  close  on  the  dauntless  little  band  hidden  in  the 
forest.    On  the  morning  of  the  26th  three  thousand  Americans 


DE    SALABERRY 


DE   SALABERRY'S   BUGLERS  369 

cross  the  south  bank  of  the  river,  with  the  design  of  crossing 
north  again  farther  down  and  swinging  round  on  De  Salaberry's 
rear.  At  the  first  shot  of  the  bluecoats  poor  De  Salaberry's 
forlorn  little  band  broke  in  panic  fright  and  fled,  but  De  Sala- 
berry  on  the  river  bank  had  grabbed  his  bugle  boy  by  the  scruff 
of  the  neck  with  a  grip  of  iron,  and  in  terms  more  forcible  than 
polite  bade  him  "  sound  — sound  — sound  the  advance"  till  the 
forest  was  filled  with  flying  echoes  of  bugle  calls.  McDonnell 
behind  hears  the  challenge,  and  mistaking  the  cheering  call  for 
note  of  victory,  bids  his  buglers  blow,  blow  advance,  blow  and 
cheer  like  devils !  The  Americans  pour  shot  into  the  forest. 
The  bugle  calls  multiply  till  the  woods  seem  filled  with  an  ad- 
vancing army  and  the  yells  split  the  sky.  Also  McDonnell  has 
ordered  his  men  to  fire  kneeling,  so  that  few  of  the  American 
shots  take  effect.  The  advancing  host  became  demoralized.  At 
2.30  they  sounded  retreat,  and  it  may  truly  be  said  that  the 
battle  of  Chateauguay  was  won  by  De  Salaberry's  bugle  boy, 
held  to  the  sticking  point,  not  because  he  was  brave,  but  because 
he  could  not  run  away.  It  is  said  that  Hampton  simply  would 
not  believe  the  truth  when  told  of  the  numbers  by  whom  he  had 
been  defeated.  It  is  also  said  that  immediately  after  the  victory 
De  Salaberry  fell  ill  from  a  bad  attack  of  nerves,  brought  on  by 
lack  of  sleep.  However  that  may  be,  the  Canadian  governor, 
Prevost,  did  not  suffer  from  an  attack  of  conscience,  for  in  his 
report  to  the  English  government  he  ascribed  the  victory  to  his 
own  management  and  presence  on  the  field. 

The  year  of  181 3  closes  darkly  for  both  sides.  Before  with- 
drawing from  Niagara  region  the  invaders  ravage  the  country 
and  set  fire  to  the  village  of  Newark,  driving  four  hundred 
women  and  children  roofless  to  December  snows.  Sir  Gordon 
Drummond,  who  has  just  come  to  command  in  Ontario,  retaliates 
swiftly  and  without  mercy.  He  crosses  the  Niagara  by  night ; 
the  fort  is  carried  at  bayonet  point,  three  hundred  men  cap- 
tured and  three  thousand  arms  taken.  Next,  Lewiston  is  burned, 
then  Black  Rock,  and  on  the  last  clay  of  the  year,  Buffalo.    Down 


370  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

on  the  Atlantic  Coast  both  fleets  win  victories,  but  the  English 
work  the  greater  hurt,  for  they  blockade  the  entire  coast  south 
of  New  York.  On  the  English  squadron  are  European  mer- 
cenaries who  have  been  given  the  name  of  Canadian  battalions, 
because  their  work  is  to  harry  the  American  coast  in  order  to 
draw  off  the  American  army  from  Canada.  European  merce- 
naries have  been  the  same  the  world  over, — riffraff  blackguards, 
guilty  of  infamous  outrages  the  moment  they  are  out  from  under 
the  officers'  eye.  These  were  the  troops  misnamed  "  Canadians," 
whose  infamous  conduct  left  a  heritage  of  hate  long  after  the 
war  ;  but  this  is  a  story  of  the  navy  rather  than  of  Canada. 

The  contest  has  now  lasted  for  almost  two  years,  and  both 
sides  are  as  far  from  decisive  victory  as  when  war  was  declared  in 
June  of  1812.  Long  since  the  embargo  laws  of  France  and  Eng- 
land against  neutral  nations  have  been  rescinded,  and  the  Amer- 
ican coast  has  suffered  more  from  the  blockade  of  this  war  than  it 
ever  did  from  the  wars  between  France  and  England.  The  year 
1 8 14  opens  with  Napoleon  defeated  and  England  pouring  aid 
across  the  Atlantic  into  Canada.  Wilkinson's  big  army  hovers 
inactive  round  Lake  Champlain,  and  Prevost  is  afraid  to  weaken 
Montreal  by  forwarding  aid  to  Drummond  at  Niagara.  The 
British  fleet  blockades  Sackett's  Harbor,  and  the  American  fleet 
blockades  Kingston.  The  Canadians  raid  Oswego  on  Lake  On- 
tario for  provisions.  The  Americans  raid  Port  Dover  on  Lake 
Erie,  leaving  the  country  a  blackened  waste  and  Tom  Talbot's 
Castle  Malahide  of  logs  a  smoking  ruin,  with  the  determined 
aim  of  cutting  off  all  supplies  in  Ontario.  Drummond  sends  his 
troops  scouring  the  country  inland  from  Niagara  for  provisions. 
Military  law  is  established  for  the  seizure  of  cattle  and  grain, 
but  for  the  latter  as  high  a  price  is  paid  as  $2.50  a  bushel,  and 
many  a  pioneer  farmer  back  from  York  (Toronto)  and  Burling- 
ton (Hamilton)  dates  the  foundation  of  his  fortune  from  the 
famine  prices  paid  for  bread  during  the  War  of  18 12. 

Of  course  the  United  States  did  not  purpose'leaving  the  fron- 
tier of  Niagara  because  Drummond  had  burnt  the  forts.     By 


THE  CHARGE  AT  CHIPPEWA 


371 


May,  Major  General  Brown  had  taken  command  of  the  United 
States  troops  at  Buffalo.  The  next  two  months  pass,  drilling 
and  training,  and  bringing  forward  provisions.  July  3,  at  day 
dawn,  during  fog  thick  as  wool  on  the  lake,  five  thousand  Ameri- 
can troops  cross  to  the  Canadian  side.  Fort  Erie's  English  garri- 
son capitulates  on  the  spot,  and  the  English  retreat  down  Niagara 
River  towards  Chippewa  by  the  Falls.  At  Chippewa,  at  Queens- 
ton,  at  Fort  George,  in  all  to 
guard  the  Canadian  frontier 
are  only  some  twenty-eight 
hundred  men.  Three  fourths 
of  these  are  kept  doing  gar- 
rison duty,  leaving  only  seven 
hundred  men  free  afield.  Just 
beside  Chippewa,  a  creek  some 
twenty  feet  wide  comes  into 
Niagara  River.  The  Canadians 
have  destroyed  the  bridge  as 
they  retreat,  but  the  Ameri- 
cans pursue,  and  at  midnight 
of  the  4th  the  two  armies  are 
facing  each  other  across  the 
brook,  ominous  dreadful  si- 
lence through  the  darkness  but 
for  the  sentry's  arms  or  the 
lumbering  advance  of  artillery 

wagons  dragged  cautiously  near  the  Canadians.  The  bridge  is 
repaired  under  peppering  shot  from  the  British.  By  four  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  5th,  the  Americans  have  crossed  the  stream. 
Their  artillery  is  in  place,  and  another  battalion  has  forded  higher 
up  and  swept  round  to  take  the  Canadians  on  the  flank.  The  Ca- 
nadians must  either  flee  in  such  blind  panic  as  Procter  displayed 
at  Moraviantown,  or  turn  and  fight.  Indians  in  ambush,  reen- 
forcements  from  Fort  George  and  Queenston  formed  in  three 
solid  columns,  the  English  wheel  to  face  the  foe.  First  there  is 
the  rattling  clatter  of  musketry  fire  from  shooters  behind  in  the 


SIR   GORDON    DRUMMOXD 


372  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

grass.  Then  the  solid  columns  break  from  a  march  to  a  run, 
and  charge  with  their  bayonets.  The  artillery  fire  of  the  Amer- 
icans meets  the  runners  in  a  terrible  death  blast  ;  but  as  the 
front  lines  drop,  the  men  behind  step  in  their  places  till  the 
armies  are  not  one  hundred  yards  apart.  Then  another  blast 
from  the  heavy  guns  of  the  Americans  literally  tears  the  Cana- 
dian columns  to  tatters.  As  the  smoke  lifts  there  are  no  col- 
umns left,  only  scattered  groups  of  men  retreating  across  a  field 
strewn  thick  with  the  mangled  dead.  Out  of  twelve  hundred 
men,  the  Canadians  have  lost  five  hundred.  The  charge  of  the 
forlorn  twelve  hundred  at  Chippewa  against  the  artillery  of  four 
thousand  Americans  has  been  likened  to  the  charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade  in  the  Russian  War.  Though  the  Canadians  were  de- 
feated, their  heroic  defense  had  for  a  few  days  at  least  checked 
the  advance  of  the  invaders.  And  now  the  position  of  the  be- 
leaguered became  desperate.  At  Fort  George,  at  Queenston, 
and  at  Burlington  Heights,  the  men  were  put  on  half  rations. 

Why  did  the  Americans  not  advance  at  once  against  Queens- 
ton  and  Fort  George  ?  For  three  weeks  they  awaited  Chaun- 
cey's  fleet  to  attack  from  the  water  side,  so  the  army  could 
rush  the  fort  from  the  land  side  ;  but  Chauncey  was  ill  and 
could  not  come,  and  the  interval  gave  the  hard-pressed  Cana- 
dians their  chance.  Drummond  comes  from  Kingston  with  four 
hundred  fresh  men  ;  also  he  calls  on  the  people  to  leave  their 
farms  and  rally  as  volunteers  to  the  last  desperate  fight.  This 
increased  his  troops  by  another  thousand,  though  many  of  the 
volunteers  were  mere  boys,  who  scarcely  knew  how  to  hold 
a  gun.  Then,  from  a  dozen  signs,  Drummond's  practiced  eye 
foresaw  that  a  forward  movement  was  being  planned  by  the 
enemy  without  Chauncey's  cooperation.  All  the  American  bag- 
gage was  being  ordered  to  rear.  False  attacks  to  draw  off 
observation  are  made  on  Fort  George  outposts.  American 
scouts  are  seen  reconnoitering  the  Back  Country.  Drummond 
rightly  guessed  that  the  attack  was  being  planned  in  one  of  two 
directions,  —  by  rounding  through  the  Back  Country,  either  to 
fall   in  great  numbers   on  Fort  George,  or  to  cut  between  the 


FINAL  ACTION   AT   LUNDY'S   LANE  373 

Canadian  army  of  Hamilton  region  and  of  Niagara  region,  tak- 
ing both  battalions  in  the  rear.  From  Fort  George  to  Queenston 
Canadian  troops  are  posted  by  Drummond,  and  where  the  road 
called  Lundy's  Lane  runs  from  the  Falls  at  right  angles  to  the 
Back  Country  more  battalions  are  ordered  on  guard  against  the 
advance  of  the  invaders.  Fitzgibbons,  the  famous  scout,  climb- 
ing to  a  tree  on  top  of  a  high  hill,  sees  the  Americans,  five 
thousand  of  them,  gray  coats,  blue  coats,  white  trousers,  mov- 
ing up  from  Chippewa  towards  Lundy's  Lane.  Quickly  sixteen 
hundred  Canadian  troops  under  General  Riall  take  possession 
of  a  hill  fronting  Lundy's  Lane  and  the  Falls.  On  the  hill  is  a 
little  brown  church  and  an  old-fashioned  graveyard.  In  the 
midst  of  the  graves  the  Canadian  cannon  are  posted.  Round 
the  cemetery  runs  a  stone  wall  screened  by  shrubbery,  and  on 
both  sides  of  Lundy's  Lane  are  endless  orchards  of  cherry  and 
peach  and  apples,  the  fruit  just  beginning  to  redden  in  the 
summer  sun.  Whether  the  enemy  aim  at  Fort  George  or  Ham- 
ilton, the  Canadian  position  on  Lundy's  Lane  must  be  passed 
and  captured.  As  soon  as  Drummond  had  Fitzgibbons'  report, 
he  sent  messengers  galloping  for  Hercules  Scott,  who  had  been 
ordered  to  retreat  to  the  lake,  to  come  back  to  Lundy's  Lane 
with  his  twelve  hundred  men.  It  may  be  imagined  that  the 
Americans  guessed  what  message  the  horseman  in  the  slather 
of  foam  was  bearing  back  to  Hercules  Scott ;  for  they  at  once 
attacked  the  Canadians  in  Lundy's  Lane  with  fury,  to  capture 
the  guns  on  the  hill  before  Hercules  Scott's  reinforcements 
could  come. 

It  was  now  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  July  25,  a  sweltering 
hot  night,  and  the  troops  on  both  sides  were  parched  for  water, 
though  the  roar  of  whole  inland  oceans  of  water  could  be  heard 
pouring  over  the  Falls  of  Niagara.  As  the  Canadians  had  charged 
against  the  American  guns  at  Chippewa,  so  now  the  Americans 
charged  uphill  against  the  guns  of  the  Canadians,  hurling  their 
full  strength  against  the  enemy's  center.  Creeping  under  shel- 
ter of  the  cemetery  stone  walls,  the  bluecoats  would  fire  a  vol- 
ley of  musketry,  jump  over  the  fence,  clash  through  the  smoke, 


374  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

bayonet  in  hand,  to  capture  the  Canadian  guns.  Time,  time 
again,  the  rush  was  dauntlessly  made,  and  time,  time  again 
met  by  the  withering  blast.  Before  nine  o'clock  the  attacking 
lines  had  lost  more  than  five  hundred  men,  and  as  many  Cana- 
dians had  fallen  on  the  hill.  The  dead  and  mangled  lay  liter- 
ally in  heaps.  As  darkness  deepened,  lit  only  by  the  wan  light 
of  a  fitful  moon  and  the  awesome  flare  of  volley  after  volley, 
the  fearful  screams  of  the  dying  could  be  heard  above  the  roar 
of  the  Falls  and  the  whistle  of  cannon  ball.  Riall,  the  com- 
mander of  the  Canadians,  had  been  wounded  and  captured.  Of 
his  sixteen  hundred  Canadians,  Drummond  had  now  left  only 
one  thousand,  and  he  was  himself  bleeding  from  a  deep  wound 
in  the  neck.  Half  the  American  officers  had  been  carried  from 
the  field  injured,  and  still  the  command  was  repeated  to  rush  the 
hill  before  Scott's  reinforcements  came,  and  each  time  the  ad- 
vancing line  was  driven  back  shattered  and  thinned,  Canadians 
dashing  in  pursuit,  cheering  and  whooping,  till  both  armies  were 
so  inextricably  mixed  it  was  impossible  to  hear  or  heed  commands. 
It  was  in  one  of  these  melees  that  Riall,  the  Canadian,  found 
himself  among  the  American  lines  and  was  captured  to  the  wild 
and  jubilant  shouting  of  the  boys  in  blue  and  gray.  Pause  fell 
at  nine  o'clock.  The  Americans  were  mustering  for  the  final 
terrible  rush.  The  moon  had  gone  behind  a  cloud,  and  the 
darkness  was  inky.  Then  a  shout  from  the  Canadian  side  split 
the  very  welkin.  Hercules  Scott  had  arrived  with  his  twelve 
hundred  men  on  a  run,  breathless  and  tired  from  a  march  and 
countermarch  of  twenty  miles.  The  Americans  took  up  the 
yell  ;  for  fresh  reserves  had  joined  them,  too,  and  Lundy's  Lane 
became  a  bedlam  of  ear-shattering  sounds, — heavy  artillery 
wagons  forcing  up  the  hill  at  a  gallop  over  dead  and  dying,  bombs 
from  the  Canadian  guns  exploding  in  the  darkness,  horses  taking 
fright  and  bolting  from  their  riders,  carrying  American  guns  clear 
across  the  lines  among  the  Canadians.  A  wild  yell  of  triumph  told 
that  the  Americans  had  captured  the  hill.  For  the  next  two 
hours  it  was  a  hand-to-hand  fight  in  pitchy  darkness.  Drum- 
mond, the  Englishman,  could  be  heard  right  in  the  midst  of  the 


GREAT   HEROISM   ON    BOTH   SIDES 


375 


American  lines,  shouting,  "  Stick  to  them,  men  !  stick  to  them  ! 
Don't  give  up  !  Don't  turn  !  Stick  to  them  !  You  '11  have  it  !  " 
And  American  officers  were  found  amidst  Canadian  battalions, 
shouting  stentorian  command:  "Level  low!  Fire  at  their 
flashes!     Watch  the  flash,  and  fire  at  their  flashes!" 

The  Americans  have  captured  the  Canadian  guns,  but  in  the 
darkness  they  cannot  carry  them  off.  Each  side  thinks  the  other 
beaten,  and  neither  will 
retreat.  In  the  confu- 
sion it  is  impossible  to 
rally  the  battalions,  and 
men  are  attacking  their 
own  side  by  mistake. 
Both  sides  claim  victory, 
and  each  is  afraid  to 
await  what  daylight  may 
reveal ;  for  it  is  no  exag- 
geration to  say  that  at 
the  battle  of  Lundy's 
Lane  the  blood  of  one 
third  of  each  side  dyed 
the  field.  The  Cana- 
dians as  defenders  of 
their  own  homes,  fight- 
ing in  the  last  ditch,  dare 
not  retire.  The  Ameri- 
cans, having  more  to 
risk  in  numbers,  with- 
draw their  troops  at  two  in  the  morning.  Of  her  twenty- 
eight  hundred  men  Canada  had  lost  nine  hundred  ;  and  the 
American  loss  is  as  great.  Too  exhausted  to  retire,  Drum- 
mond's  men  flung  themselves  on  the  ground  and  slept  lying 
among  the  dead,  heedless  alike  of  the  drenching  rain  that  fol- 
lows artillery  fire,  of  the  roaring  cataract,  of  the  groans  from 
the  wounded.  Men  awakened  in  the  gray  dawn  to  find  them- 
selves unrecognizable  from  blood  and  powder  smoke,  to  find, 


MONUMENT   AT    LUNDV  S    LANE 


376  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

in  some  cases,  that  the  comrade  whose  coat  they  had  shared 
as  pillow  lay  cold  in  death  by  morning.  While  Drummond's 
men  bury  the  dead  in  heaps  and  carry  the  wounded  to  To- 
ronto, the  invaders  have  retreated  with  their  wounded  to  Fort 
Erie. 

It  now  became  the  dauntless  Drummond's  aim  to  expel  the 
enemy  from  Fort  Erie.  Five  days  after  the  battle  of  Lundy's 
Lane  he  had  moved  his  camp  halfway  between  Chippewa  and 
Fort  Erie  ;  but  in  addition  to  its  garrison  of  two  thousand, 
Fort  Erie  is  guarded  by  three  armed  schooners  lying  at  anchor 
on  the  lake  front.  Captain  Dobbs  of  Drummond's  forces  makes 
the  first  move.  At  the  head  of  seventy-five  men,  he  deploys 
far  to  the  rear  of  the  fort  through  the  woods,  carrying  five  flat- 
boats  over  the  forest  trail  eight  miles,  and  on  the  night  of  the 
1 2th  of  August  slips  out  through  the  water  mist  towards  the 
American  schooners. 

"  Who  goes  ?  "  challenges  the  ships'  watchman. 

"  Provision  boats  from  Buffalo,"  calls  back  the  Canadian 
oarsman  ;  and  the  rowboats  pass  round  within  the  shadow  of 
the  schooner.  A  moment  later  the  American  ships  are  boarded. 
A  trampling  on  deck  calls  the  sailors  aloft ;  but  Dobbs  has 
mastered  two  vessels  before  the  fort  wakes  to  life  with  a  rush 
to  the  rescue. 

Delay  means  almost  inevitable  loss  to  Drummond  ;  for  Pre- 
vost  will  send  no  more  reinforcements,  and  the  Americans  are 
daily  strengthening  Fort  Erie.  Bastions  of  stone  have  been 
built.  Outer  batteries  command  approach  to  the  walls,  and 
along  the  narrow  margin  between  the  fort  and  the  lake  earth- 
works have  been  thrown  up,  mounted  with  cannon  elbowing  to 
the  water's  edge.  Taking  advantage  of  the  elation  over  Dobbs' 
raid  on  the  schooners,  Drummond  plans  a  night  assault  on  the 
15th  of  August.  Rain  had  been  falling  in  splashes  all  clay. 
The  fort  trenches  were  swimming  like  rivers,  and  it  may  be  men- 
tioned that  Drummond's  camp  was  swimming  too,  boding  ill 
for  his  men's  health.    One  of  the  foreign  regiments  was  to  lead 


ASSAULT  AT   FORT   ERIE  377 

the  assault  round  by  the  lake  side,  while  Drummond  and  his 
nephew  rushed  the  bastions.  It  will  be  remembered  these 
foreign  regiments  of  Napoleonic  wars  were  composed  of  the 
offscourings  of  Europe.  The  fighters  were  to  depend  "  on  bayo- 
net alone,  giving  no  quarter."  Splashing  along  the  rain-soaked 
road  in  silence  and  darkness,  scaling  ladders  over  shoulders, 
bayonets  in  hand,  the  foreign  troops  came  to  the  earthwork 
elbowing  out  into  the  lake.  This  was  passed  by  the  men  wading 
out  in  the  lake  to  their  chins  ;  but  the  noise  was  overheard  by 
the  fort  sentry,  and  a  perfect  blaze  of  musketry  shattered  the 
darkness  and  drove  the  mercenaries  back  pellmell,  bellowing 
with  terror.  A  few  of  the  English  and  Canadian  troops  pressed 
forward,  only  to  find  that  they  could  not  reach  within  ladder  dis- 
tance of  the  walls  at  all,  for  spiked  trees  had  been  placed  above 
the  trenches  in  a  perfect  crisscross  hurdle  of  sharpened  ends. 
In  old  letters  of  the  period  one  reads  how  the  trenches  were 
literally  heaped  with  a  jumbled  mass  of  the  dead.  The  other 
attacking  columns  fared  almost  as  badly.  One  of  the  bastions 
had  been  entered  by  the  cannon  embrasures,  Drummond,  Junior, 
shouting  to  "give  no  quarter  —  give  no  quarter,"  when,  from 
the  cross  firing  in  the  courtyards,  the  powder  magazine  below 
this  bastion  was  set  on  fire,  and  exploded  with  a  terrific  crash, 
killing  the  assailants  almost  to  a  man.  In  all,  —  killed,  wounded, 
missing,  —  the  assault  cost  Drummond's  army  nine  hundred  men. 
September  proved  a  rainy  month.  Drummond's  camp  became 
almost  a  marsh,  and  the  health  of  the  troops  compelled  a  move 
to  higher  ground.  It  was  then  the  Americans  sallied  out  in 
assault.  Neither  side  could  claim  victory,  but  the  skirmish 
cost  each  army  more  than  five  hundred  men.  Sir  James  Yeo 
now  comes  sailing  up  Lake  Ontario  with  some  of  the  sixteen 
thousand  troops  sent  from  England.  The  weather  became  un- 
favorable to  movement  on  either  side,  —  rain  and  sleet  continu- 
ously. Drummond  foresaw  that  the  season  would  compel  the 
abandonment  of  Fort  Erie,  and  on  November  5,  a  scout  came  in 
with  word  that  the  invaders  had  crossed  to  the  American  side 
and  Fort  Erie  had  been  blown  up. 


378  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

While  Drummond  is  fighting  for  the  very  life  of  Canada 
along  the  Niagara  frontier,  the  war  continues  in  desultory 
fashion  elsewhere.  Kentucky  riflemen  raid  western  Ontario 
from  Detroit  to  Port  Dover.  Up  on  the  lakes  is  a  story  of 
the  war  that  reads  like  a  page  from  border  raiders.  Ameri- 
can fur  traders  destroy  Sault  Ste.  Marie.  Canadian  fur  traders 
retaliate  by  swooping  on  Mississippi  fur  posts.  Out  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  an  English  gunboat  has  captured  John  Jacob 
Astor's  fur  post  on  the  Columbia;  and  now  in  the  fall  of  1814 
the  Northwest  Fur  Company  of  Montreal  are  conveying  from 
Astor's  fort  the  furs,  worth  millions  of  dollars,  in  canoes  across 
the  Upper  Lakes  to  Ottawa  River.  Two  armed  American 
schooners,  hiding  on  the  north  shore  of  Lake  Huron,  lie  in  wait 
for  the  gay  raiders  of  the  Northwest  Company ;  but  at  the 
Sault  the  Nor' west  voyageurs  get  wind  of  the  danger.  They, 
in  turn,  hide  their  canoes  in  some  of  the  blue  coves  of  the 
north  shore.  Then,  stealing  out  at  night,  in  canoes  with  muffled 
paddles,  the  Nor' westers  come  on  one  schooner  while  the  watch 
is  asleep.  They  board  her,  bayonet  the  crew,  "  pinion  some  of 
the  wounded  to  the  decks,"  and  with  the  captured  vessel  sidle 
up  to  the  other  vessel,  and,  before  she  is  aware  of  the  new  mas- 
ters on  board,  have  captured  her  too.  Then,  scalps  flaunting 
at  the  prows  of  their  canoes,  the  Nor'west  fur  traders  gayly 
go  their  way.  Down  at  Lake  Champlain  occurs  the  great  fiasco 
of  the  war, — the  blot  on  Canada's  escutcheon.  Prevost  with 
ten  thousand  reinforcements  has  been  ordered  by  the  English 
Governor  to  proceed  from  Montreal  against  the  Americans  by 
both  water  and  land.  While  an  English  fleet  attacks  the  Ameri- 
cans, Prevost  is  to  lead  the  troops  against  Plattsburg.  But  the 
Canadian  fleet  meets  terrible  disaster.  The  commander  is  killed 
by  a  rebounding  cannon  ball  just  as  the  action  begins  ;  and 
twelve  of  the  gunboats  manned  by  the  hired  foreigners  desert 
en  masse.  The  rest  of  the  fleet  is  literally  destroyed.  Instead 
of  seconding  attack  by  a  battle  on  land,  Prevost  sits  behind 
his  trenches  waiting  for  the  little  fleet  to  win  the  battle  for  him  ; 
and  when  the  fleet  is  defeated,  Prevost's  courage  sinks  with  the 


END   OF   FUTILE  WAR  379 

sinking  ships.  He  gathers  up  his  troops  and  retreats  in  a  scare  of 
haste,  —  such  a  fright  of  unseemly,  unsoldierly  haste  that  nearly 
one  thousand  of  his  soldiers  desert  in  sheer  disgust.  Down  at 
Nova  Scotia  are  raid  and  counter-raid  too.  The  British  and 
American  fleets  wage  fierce  war  that  is  not  part  of  Canada's 
story  ;  but  in  the  contest  the  public  buildings  of  Washington 
are  burned  in  retaliation  for  the  burning  of  Newark  ;  and  down 
at  New  Orleans  the  English  suffer  a  crushing  defeat. 

Meanwhile  the  peace  commissioners  have  been  at  work  ;  and 
the  war  that  ought  never  to  have  taken  place,  that  settled  not 
one  jot  of  the  dispute  which  caused  it,  was  closed  by  the  Treaty 
of  Ghent,  Christmas  Eve  of  18 14.  All  captured  forts,  all  plun- 
der, all  prisoners,  are  to  be  restored.  Michilimackinac  and  Fort 
Niagara  and  Astoria  on  the  Columbia  go  back  to  the  United 
States;  but  of  "impressment"  and  "right  of  search"  and 
"embargo  of  neutrals  "  not  a  word.  The  waste  of  life  and  hap- 
piness accomplished  not  a  feather's  weight  unless  it  were  the 
lesson  of  the  criminal  folly  of  a  war  between  nations  akin  in 
aim  and  speech  and  blood. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FROM  1812  TO  1846 

When  Sir  Alexander  MacKenzie,  the  discoverer,  went  home 
to  retire  on  an  estate  in  Scotland,  he  found  the  young  nobleman 
and  philanthropist,  Lord  Selkirk,  keenly  interested  in  accounts 
of  vast,  new,  unpeopled  lands,  which  lay  beyond  the  Great 
Lakes.  A  change  in  the  system  of  farming,  which  dispossessed 
small  farmers  to  turn  the  tenantries  into  sheep  runs,  had  caused 
terrible  poverty  in  Scotland  at  this  period.  Here  in  Scotland 
were  people  starving  for  want  of  land.  There  in  America  were 
lands  idle  for  lack  of  people.  Selkirk  had  already  sent  out  some 
colonists  to  the  Lake  St.  Clair  region  of  Ontario  and  to  Prince 
Edward  Island,  but  what  he  heard  from  MacKenzie  turned  his 
attention  to  the  new  empire  of  the  prairie.  Then  in  Montreal, 
where  he  had  been  dined  and  wined  by  the  Northwest  Company's 
"  Beaver  Club,"  he  had  heard  still  more  of  this  vast  new  land, 
of  its  wealth  of  furs,  of  its  untimbered  fields,  where  man  had 
but  to  put  in  the  plowshare  to  sow  his  crop.  The  one  great 
obstruction  to  settlement  there  would  be  the  claims  of  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company  to  exclusive  monopoly  of  the  country ;  but 
as  Selkirk  listened  to  the  descriptions  of  the  Red  River  Valley 
given  by  Colin  Robertson,  who  had  been  dismissed  by  the  Nor'- 
westers,  he  thought  he  saw  a  way  of  overcoming  all  difficulties 
which  the  fur  traders  could  put  in  the  way  of  settlement. 

Owing  to  competition  Hudson's  Bay  stock  had  fallen  from  two 
hundred  and  fifty  to  fifty  pounds  sterling  a  share.  On  returning 
to  Scotland  Lord  Selkirk  had  begun  buying  up  Hudson's  Bay 
stock  in  the  market,  along  with  Sir  Alexander  MacKenzie  ;  but 
when  MacKenzie  learned  that  Selkirk's  object  was  colonization 
first,  profits  second,  he  broke  in  violent  anger  from  the  partner- 
ship in  speculation,  and  besought  William  MacGillivray  to  go  on 

380 


SELKIRK'S  COLONY 


t8l 


the  open  market  and  buy  against  Selkirk  to  defeat  the  plans  for 
settlement.  What  with  shares  owned  by  his  wife's  family  of  Col- 
ville-Wedderburns,  and  those  he  had  himself  purchased,  Selkirk 
now  owned  a  controlling  interest  in  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 

Early  in  1S11  the  Company  deeds  to  Lord  Selkirk  the  coun- 
try of  Red  River  Valley,  exceeding  in  area  the  British  Isles  and 
extending,  through  the  ignorance  of  its  donors,  far  south  into 
American  territory.  Colin  Robertson,  the  former  Nor' wester, 
who  first  interested  Selkirk  in  Red  River,  has  meanwhile  been 
gathering  together  a  party  of 
colonists.  Miles  MacDonell,  re- 
tired from  the  Glengarry  Regi- 
ment, has  been  appointed  by 
Selkirk  governor  of  the  new 
colony. 

What  of  the  Nor' westers  while 
these  projects  went  forward  ? 
Writes  MacGillivray  from  Lon- 
don, where  he  has  been  stirring 
up  enmity  to  Selkirk's  project, 
"Selkirk  must  be  driven  to  aban- 
don his  project  at  any  eost,  for 
his  colony  would  prove  utterly 
destructive   of   our  fur   trade!'  Selkirk 

How  he  purposed  doing  this  will 

be  seen.  Writes  Selkirk  to  the  governor  of  his  colony,  Miles 
MacDonell  :  "  The  Northwest  Company  must  be  compelled  to  quit 
my  lands.  If  they  refuse,  they  must  be  treated  as  poachers."  Sel- 
kirk believed  that  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  charter  to  the 
Great  Northwest  was  legal  and  valid.  He  believed  that  the  vast 
territory  granted  to  him  was  legally  his  own  as  much  as  his  parks 
in  Scotland.  He  believed  that  he  possessed  the  same  right  to 
expel  intruders  on  this  territory  as  to  drive  poachers  from  his 
own  Scotch  parks.  It  was  the  spirit  of  feudalism.  As  for  the 
Nor'westers,  let  us  look  at  their  rights.  They  disputed  that  the 
charter  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  applied  beyond  the  bounds 


382  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

of  Hudson  Bay.  Even  if  it  did  so  apply,  they  pointed  out  that 
by  the  terms  of  the  charter  it  applied  only  to  lands  not  possessed 
by  any  other  Christian  power  ;  and  who  would  dispute  that  French 
fur  traders  and  Nor' westers,  as  their  successors,  had  ascended 
the  streams  of  the  interior  long  before  the  Hudson's  Bay  men  ? 
It  was  the  spirit  of  democracy.  It  needed  no  prophet  to  foresee 
when  these  two  sets  of  claims  came  together  there  would  be  a 
violent  clash. 

It  is  evening  in  the  little  harbor  of  Stornoway,  off  the  Hebri- 
des, north  of  Scotland,  July  25,  181 1.  Waning  midsummer  has 
begun  to  shorten  the  long  days  ;  and  lying  at  anchor  in  the  twi- 
light a  few  yards  offshore  are  the  three  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
boats,  outward  bound.  For  a  week  the  quiet  little  fishing  ham- 
let has  been  in  a  turmoil,  for  Governor  Miles  MacDonell  and 
Colin  Robertson  have  ordered  the  Selkirk  settlers  here  —  1 29 
of  them,  70  farmers,  59  clerks  —  to  join  the  Hudson's  Bay  boats 
as  they  swing  out  westward  on  their  far  cruise  to  the  north,  and 
the  atmosphere  has  literally  been  on  fire  with  vexations  created 
by  spies  of  the  Northwest  Company.  In  the  first  place,  as  the 
settlers  wait  for  the  ships  coming  up  from  London,  trouble 
makers  pass  from  group  to  group  scattering  a  miserable  little 
sheet  called  "The  Highlander,"  warning  "the  deluded  people" 
against  going  to  "a  polar  land  of  Indian  hostiles."  Besides, 
dark  hints  are  uttered  that  the  settlers  are  not  wanted  for  colo- 
nists at  all,  but  for  armed  battalions  to  fight  the  Nor'westers 
for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  in  proof  whereof  the  prophets 
of  evil  point  ominously  to  the  cannon  and  munitions  of  war  on 
board  the  three  old  fur  boats.  Then  there  is  too  much  whisky 
afloat  in  Stornoway  that  week.  Settlers  are  taken  ashore  and 
fare  welled  and  farewelled  and  farewelled  till  unable  to  find  their 
way  down  to  the  rowboats,  and  then  they  are  easily  frightened 
into  abandoning  the  risky  venture  altogether.  On  the  settlers 
who  have  come  as  clerks  to  the  Company  Governor  MacDonell 
can  keep  a  strong  hand,  for  they  have  been  paid  their  wages  in 
advance  and  are  seized  if  they  attempt  to  desert.  Then  the  ex- 
cise officer  here  is  a  friend  of  the  Nor'westers,  and  he  creates 


TROUBLES  ON  PASSAGE  383 

endless  trouble  rowing  round  and  round  the  boats,  bawling  .  .  . 
bawling  out  ...  to  know  "  if  all  who  are  embarking  are  going  of 
their  own  free  will,"  till  the  ship's  hands,  looking  over  decks, 
become  so  exasperated  they  heave  a  cannon  ball  over  rails,  which 
goes  splash  through  the  bottom  of  the  harbor  officer's  rowboat 
and  sends  him  cursing  ashore  to  dispatch  a  challenge  for  a  duel  to 
Governor  MacDonell.  MacDonell  sees  plainly  that  if  he  is  to 
have  any  colonists  left,  he  must  sail  at  once.  Anchors  up  and 
sails  out  at  eleven  that  night,  the  ships  glide  from  shore  so  unex- 
pectedly that  one  faint-heart,  desperately  resolved  on  flight,  has 
to  jump  overboard  and  swim  ashore,  while  two  other  settlers, 
who  have  been  lingering  over  farewells,  must  be  rowed  across 
harbor  by  Colin  Robertson  to  catch  the  departing  ships.  Then 
Robertson  is  back  on  the  wharf  trumpeting  a  last  cheer  through 
his  funneled  hands.  The  Highlanders  on  decks  lean  over  the 
vessel  railings  waving  their  bonnets.  The  Glasgow  and  Dublin 
lads  indentured  as  clerks  give  a  last  huzza,  and  the  Selkirk 
settlers  are  off  for  their  Promised  Land. 

As  long  ago  Cartier's  first  colonists  to  the  St.  Lawrence  had 
their  mettle  tested  by  tempestuous  weather  and  pioneer  hard- 
ships, so  now  the  first  colonists  to  the  Great  Northwest  must 
meet  the  challenge  that  fate  throws  clown  to  all  who  leave  the 
beaten  path.  Though  the  season  was  late,  the  weather  was  ex- 
traordinarily stormy.  Sixty-one  clays  the  passage  lasted,  the 
tubby  old  fur  ships  lying  water-logged,  rolling  to  the  angry  sea. 
MacDonell  was  furious  that  colonists  had  been  risked  on  such  un- 
seaworthy  craft,  but  those  old  fur-ship  captains,  with  fifty  years 
ice  battling  to  their  credit,  probably  knew  their  business  better 
than  MacDonell.  The  fur  ships  had  not  been  built  for  speed 
and  comfort,  but  for  cargoes  and  safety,  and  when  storms  came 
they  simply  lowered  sails,  turned  tails  to  the  wind,  and  rolled 
till  the  gale  had  passed,  to  the  prolonged  woe  of  the  Highland 
landsmen,  who  for  the  first  time  suffered  seasick  pangs.  Then, 
when  Governor  MacDonell  attempted  drills  to  pass  the  time,  he 
made  the  discovery  that  seditious  talk  had  gone  the  rounds  of 
the  deck.    "  The  Hudson's  Bay  had  no  right  to  this  country." 


3§4 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


"The  Nor'westers  owned  that  country."  "The  Hudson's  Bay- 
could  n't  compel  any  man  to  drill  and  fight."  Selkirk  could 
not  give  clear  deed  to  their  "  lands,"  and  much  more  to  the 
same  effect,  all  of  which  proved  that  some  Nor'wester  agent  in 
disguise  had  been  busy  on  board. 

September  24,  amid  falling  snow  and  biting  frost,  the  ships 
anchored  at  Five  Fathom  Hole  off  York  Factory,  Port  Nelson. 


As-    %S-         -Mirth     >jv  V 


NELSON    AND    HAYES    RIVERS 
(From  Robson) 

The  Selkirk  settlers  had  been  sixty-one  days  on  board,  and  they 
were  still  a  year  away  from  their  Promised  Land.  Champlain's 
colonists  of  Acadia  and  Quebec  had  come  to  anchorage  on  a 
land  set  like  a  jewel  amid  silver  waters  and  green  hills,  but  the 
Selkirk  settlers  have  as  yet  seen  only  rocks  barren  of  verdure  as 
a  billiard  ball,  vales  amidst  the  domed  hills  of  Hudson  Straits, 
dank  with  muskeg,  and  silent  as  the  very  realms  of  death  itself, 
but  for  the  flacker  of  wild  fowl,  the  roaring  of  the  floundering 


WINTER  ON  THE  BAY 


385 


walrus  herds,  or  the  lonely  tinkling  of  mountain  streams  running 
from  the  ice  fields  to  the  mossy  valleys  bordering  the  northern 
sea.  It  needed  a  robust  hope,  or  the  blind  faith  of  an  almost 
religious  zeal,  to  penetrate  the  future  and  see  beyond  these  sterile 
shores  the  Promised  Land,  where  homes  were  to  be  built,  and 
plenty  to  abound.  If  pioneer  struggles  leave  a  something  in  the 
blood  of  the  race  that  makes  for  national  strength  and  perma- 
nency, the  difference  between  the  home  finding  of  the  West  and 
the  home  finding  of  the  East  is  worth  noting. 

There  were,  of  course,  no  preparations  for  the  colonists  at 
York  Fort,  for  the  factor  could  not  know  they  were  coming,  or 
anything  of  Selkirk's  plans,  till  the  annual  ships  arrived.  On 
the  chance  of  finding  better  hunting  farther  from  the  fort, 
MacDonell  withdrew  his  people  from  Hayes  River,  north  across 
the  marsh  to  a  sheltered  bank  of  the  River  Nelson.  Winter  had 
set  in  early.  A  whooping  blizzard  met  the  pilgrims  as  they 
marched  along  an  Indian  trail  through  the  brushwood.  There  is 
a  legend  of  Miles  MacDonell,  the  governor,  becoming  benighted 
between  York  Fort  and  Nelson  River,  and  losing  his  way  in  the 
storm.  According  to  the  story,  he  beat  about  the  brushwood  for 
twenty-four  hours  before  he  regained  his  bearings.  Rude  huts  of 
rough  timber  and  thatch  roof  with  logs  extemporized  for  berths 
and  benches  were  knocked  up  for  wintering  quarters  on  Nelson 
River,  and  the  next  nine  months  were  passed  hunting  deer  for 
store  of  provisions,  and  building  flatboats  to  ascend  the  interior. 
All  winter  a  mutinous  spirit  was  at  work  among  the  young  clerks, 
which  MacDonell,  no  doubt,  ascribed  to  the  machinations  of 
Nor' westers  ;  but  the  chief  factor  quickly  quelled  mutiny  by  cut- 
ting off  supplies,  and  all  hands  were  ready  to  proceed  when  the 
fur  brigades  set  out  for  the  interior  on  the  21st  of  June,  18 12. 

Up  Hayes  River,  up  the  whole  length  of  Winnipeg  Lake, 
then  in  August  the  flatboats  are  ascending  the  muddy  current 
of  Red  River,  through  what  is  now  Manitoba,  and  for  the  first 
time  the  people  see  their  Promised  Land.  High  banks  fringed 
with  maple  and  oak  line  the  river  at  what  is  now  Selkirk. 
Then  the  cliffs  lower,  and  through  the  woods  are  broken  gleams 


386  CANADA:    THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

of  the  rolling  prairie  intersected  by  ravines,  stretching  far  as  eye 
can  see,  where  sky  and  earth  meet.  From  the  lateness  of  the 
season  one  can  guess  that  the  river  was  low  at  the  bowlder  reach 
known  as  St.  Andrew's  Rapids,  and  that  while  the  boats  were 
tracked  upstream  the  people  would  disembark  and  walk  along 
the  Indian  trails  of  the  west  bank.  There  was  no  Fort  Garry 
near  the  rapids,  as  a  few  years  later.  Buffalo-skin  tepees  alone 
broke  the  endless  sweep  of  russet  prairie  and  sky,  clear  swim- 
ming blue  as  the  purest  lake.  Then  the  people  are  back  aboard, 
laboring  hard  at  the  oar  now,  for  they  know  they  are  nearing 
the  end  of  their  long  pilgrimage.  The  river  banks  rise  higher. 
Then  they  drop  gradually  to  the  flats  now  known  as  Point 
Douglas.  Another  bend  in  the  sinuous  red  current,  looping  and 
curving  and  circling  fantastically  through  the  prairie,  and  the 
Selkirk  settlers  are  in  full  view  of  the  old  Cree  graveyard,  — 
bodies  swathed  in  skins  on  scaffolding,  —  clown  at  the  junction  of 
the  Assiniboine.  Hard  by  they  see  the  towered  bastions  of  the 
Northwest  Company's  post,  Fort  Gibraltar.  Somewhere  between 
what  are  known  to-day  as  Broadway  Bridge  and  Point  Douglas, 
the  Selkirk  settlers  land  on  the  west  side.  Chief  Peguis  and  his 
Cree  warriors  ride  wonderingly  among  the  white-faced  newcomers, 
marveling  at  men  who  have  crossed  the  Great  Waters  "  to  dig 
gardens  and  work  land."  The  barracks  knocked  up  hastily 
is  known  after  Selkirk's  family  name  as  Fort  Douglas  ;  but  the 
store  of  deer  meat  has  been  exhausted,  and  the  colonists  are 
on  the  verge  of  a  second  winter.  They  at  once  join  the  Plain 
Rangers,  or  Bois  Brules  (Burnt  Wood  Runners),  half-breed  de- 
scendants of  French  and  Nor' west  fur  traders,  who  have  become 
retainers  of  the  Montreal  Company.  With  them  the  Selkirk 
settlers  proceed  south  to  Pembina  and  the  Boundary  to  hunt 
buffalo.  No  instructions  had  yet  come  to  Red  River  of  the 
Northwest  Company's  hostility  to  the  colony,  and  the  lonely 
Scotch  clerks  of  Fort  Gibraltar  were  glad  to  welcome  men  who 
spoke  their  own  Highland  tongue.  Volumes  might  be  written 
of  this,  the  colonists'  first  year  in  their  Promised  Land:  how  the 
rude  Plain  Rangers  conveyed  them  to  the  buffalo  hunt  in  their 


FIRST  WINTER  ON  RED  RIVER  387 

creaking  Red  River  carts,  —  carts  made  entirely  of  wood,  hub, 
tire,  axle,  and  all,  or  else  on  loaned  ponies  ;  how  when  storm 
came  the  white  settlers  were  welcomed  to  the  huts  and  skin 
tents  of  the  French  half-breeds,  given  food  and  buffalo  blankets  ; 
how  many  a  young  Highlander  came  to  grief  in  the  wild  stam- 
pede of  his  first  buffalo  hunt ;  how  when  the  hunters  returned 
to  Fort  Gibraltar  (Winnipeg),  on  Red  River,  with  store  enough 
of  pemmican  for  all  the  fur  posts  of  the  Nor' westers,  many  a 
wild  happy  winter  night  was  passed  dancing  mad  Indian  jigs 
to   the   piping  of  the   Highland   piper   and    the  crazy  scraping 


Y: 


FORT    GARRY,    RED    RIVER   SETTLEMENT 

of  some  Frenchman's  fiddle ;  how  when  morning  came,  in  a 
gray  dawn  of  smoking  frost  mist,  a  long  line  of  the  colonists 
could  be  seen  winding  along  the  ice  of  Red  River  home  to  Fort 
Douglas,  Piper  Green  or  Hector  McLean  leading  the  way,  still 
prancing  and  blowing  a  proud  national  air ;  how  when  spring 
opened,  ten-acre  plots  were  assigned  to  each  settler,  close  to  the 
fort  at  what  were  known  as  the  Colony  Buildings,  and  one  hun- 
dred-acre farms  farther  clown  the  river.  All  this  and  more  are 
part  of  the  story  of  the  coming  of  the  first  colonists  to  the  Great 
Northwest.  The  very  autumn  that  the  first  settlers  had  reached 
Red  River  in  18 12  more  colonists  had  arrived  on  the  boats  at 


t88 


CANADA:    THE    EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


Hudson  Bay.  These  did  not  reach  Red  River  till  October  of 
1812  and  the  spring  of  18 13.  By  181 3,  and  on  till  18 17,  more 
colonists  yearly  came.  The  story  of  each  year,  with  its  plot  and 
counterplot,  I  have  told  elsewhere.  Spite  of  Nor' westers'  threats, 
spite  of  the  fact  there  would  be  no  market  for  the  colonists  when 
they  had  succeeded  in  transforming  wilderness  prairie  into  farms, 
Selkirk's  mad  dream  of  empire  seemed  to  be  succeeding. 


The  cardinal  mistake  in  the  contest  between  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  and  Nor'westers,  between  feudalism  and  democracy, 


FORT   DOUGLAS 

was  now  committed  by  the  governor  of  the  colony,  Miles 
MacDonell.  The  year  18 13  had  proved  poor  for  the  buffalo 
hunters.  Large  numbers  of  colonists  were  coming,  and  provi- 
sions were  likely  to  be  scarce.  Also,  note  it  well,  while  the  War 
of  181 2  did  not  cut  off  supplies  through  Hudson  Bay  to  the 
English  Company,  it  did  threaten  access  to  the  West  by  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  cut  off  all  supplies  by  way  of  Detroit  and 
Lake  Huron  for  the  Nor'westers.  Was  MacDonell  scoring  a 
point  against  the  Nor'westers,  when  they  were  at  a  disadvan- 
tage ?  Who  can  answer?  Selkirk  had  ordered  him  to  expel  the 


FIRST  CONFLICT  389 

Nor'westers  from  his  lands,  and  if  the  violent  contest  had  not 
begun  in  this  way,  it  was  bound  to  come  in  another.  What 
MacDonell  did  was  issue  a  proclamation  in  January  of  18 14, 
forbidding  taking  provisions  from  Selkirk's  territory  of  Assini- 
boia.  It  practically  meant  that  the  Plain  Rangers  must  not 
hunt  buffalo  in  the  limits  of  modern  Manitoba,  and  must  not 
sell  supplies  to  the  Nor'westers.  It  also  meant  that  all  the  upper 
posts  of  the  Nor'westers  —  the  fur  posts  of  Athabasca  and 
British  Columbia,  which  depended  on  pemmican  for  food — would 
be  without  adequate  provisions.  The  Plain  Rangers  were  en- 
raged beyond  words,  and  doubly  outraged  when  some  Hudson's 
Bay  men  began  seizing  buffalo  meat  at  Pembina  River,  which 
was  beyond  the  limits  of  Selkirk's  territory.  Writes  Peter  Fidler, 
one  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  factors,  "If  MacDonell  only  perse- 
veres, he  iv ill  starve  the  Nor'westers  out." 

One  can  guess  the  anger  in  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Nor'- 
westers at  Fort  William  in  July  of  18 14.  Like  generals  on  field 
of  war  they  laid  out  their  campaign.  Duncan  Cameron,  a  United 
Empire  Loyalist  officer  of  the  18 12  War,  is  to  don  his  red  regi- 
mentals and  proceed  to  Red  River,  where  his  knowledge  of  the 
Gaelic  tongue  may  be  trusted  to  win  over  Selkirk  settlers. 
"Nothing  but  the  complete  downfall  of  the  colony  will  satisfy 
some"  wrote  one  of  the  fiery  Nor'westers  to  a  brother  officer. 
Such  was  the  mood  of  the  Nor'westers  when  they  came  back 
from  their  annual  meeting  on  Lake  Superior  to  Red  River,  and 
MacDonell  fanned  this  mood  to  dangerous  fury  by  threatening 
to  burn  the  Nor'westers'  forts  to  the  ground  unless  they  moved 
from  Selkirk's  territory.  For  the  present  Duncan  Cameron 
contents  himself  with  striking  up  a  warm  friendship  with  the 
Highlanders  of  the  settlement  and  offering  to  transport  two 
hundred  of  them  free  of  cost  to  Eastern  Canada.  MacDonell 
seizes  still  more  provisions  from  northwest  forts.  Cameron, 
the  Nor' wester,  comes  back  from  the  annual  meeting  of  18 15 
still  more  bellicose.  He  carries  the  warrant  to  arrest  Governor 
Miles  MacDonell  for  the  seizure  of  those  provisions.  Mac- 
Donell,   safe    behind    the    palisades    of    Fort    Douglas,    laughs 


390  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

the  warrant  to  scorn ;  but  it  is  another  matter  when  the  Plain 
Rangers  ride  across  the  prairie  from  Fort  Gibraltar  armed,  and 
pour  such  hot  shot  into  Fort  Douglas  that  the  colonists,  frenzied 
with  fear,  huddle  to  the  fort  for  shelter.  To  insure  the  safety 
of  his  colonists,  MacDonell  surrenders  to  the  Nor' westers  and 
is  sent  to  Eastern  Canada  for  a  trial  which  never  takes  place. 
No  sooner  has  Governor  MacDonell  been  expelled  than  Cuth- 
bert  Grant,  warden  of  the  Plain  Rangers,  rides  over  to  the 
colony  and  warns  the  colonists  to  flee  for  their  lives,  from 
Indians  enraged  at  "  these  land  workers  spoiling  the  hunting 
fields."  What  the  Indians  thought  of  this  defense  of  their  rights 
is  not  stated.  They  were  silent  and  unacting  witnesses  of  the 
unedifying  spectacle  of  white  men  ready  to  fly  at  each  other's 
throats.  It  was  too  late  for  the  colonists  to  reach  Hudson  Bay 
in  time  for  the  annual  ships  of  1 8 1 5 ,  so  the  houseless  people 
dispersed  amid  the  forests  of  Lake  Winnipeg,  where  they  could 
be  certain  of  at  least  fish  for  food. 

Word  of  the  two  hundred  settlers  having  been  moved  from 
Red  River  by  the  Nor'westers,  of  MacDonell's  forcible  expul- 
sion, and  of  the  dispersion  of  the  rest  of  the  colony  had,  of 
course,  been  sent  to  Selkirk  and  his  agents  in  both  Montreal 
and  London.  Swift  retaliation  is  prepared.  Colin  Robertson, 
who  speaks  French  like  a  Canadian  and  knows  all  the  Nor' west 
voyageurs  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  is  sent  to  gather  up  two  hundred 
French  boatmen  under  the  very  noses  of  the  Nor'westers  at 
Montreal.  With  these  Robertson  is  to  invade  the  far-famed 
Athabasca,  whence  come  the  best  furs,  the  very  heart  of  the 
Nor'westers'  stamping  ground.  Robert  Semple  is  appointed 
governor  of  the  colony  on  Red  River,  with  instructions  to  resist 
the  aggressions  of  the  Nor'westers  even  to  the  point  of  "a 
shock  that  may  be  felt  from  Montreal  to  Athabasca."  Selkirk 
himself  comes  to  Canada  to  interview  the  Governor  General 
about  military  forces  to  protect  his  colony. 

Robertson,  with  his  two  hundred  voyageurs  for  Athabasca, 
follows  the  old  Ottawa  trail  of  the  French  explorers,  from  the 
St.  Lawrence  to  the  Great  Lakes,  and  from  the  Great  Lakes  to 


NOR'WESTERS  RALLY  TO  DEFENSE 


391 


Red  River  by  way  of  Winnipeg  Lake.  Whom  does  he  find  on  the 
shores  of  the  lake  but  Selkirk's  dispersed  colonists  !  Ordering 
John  Clarke,  an  old  campaigner  of  Astor's  company  on  the  Co- 
lumbia, to  lead  the  two  hundred  French  voyageurs  on  up  to  Atha- 
basca, Colin  Robertson  rallies  the  colonists  together  and  leads 
them  back  to  Red  River  for  the  winter  of  18 15-18 16.  Feeling 
sure  that  he  had  destroyed  Selkirk's  scheme  root  and  branch, 
Cameron  has  remained  at  Fort  Gibraltar  with  only  a  few  men, 


SKETCH   ( 

CITY     of 

MAM  TOR 


ipaasooaaiffi 


WMBSBMSSSi 


IHfflDniDiill 


mm 


fc 

soj 
say 

aaa 

rxm 
□01 
□J 


mmE 


SKETCH    OF   THE    CITY    OF    WINNIPEG,    SHOWING   THE 
SITES    OF  THE  EARLY  FORTS 

when  back  to  the  field  comes  Robertson,  stormy,  capable,  robust, 
red-blooded,  fearless,  breathing  vengeance  on  Selkirk's  foes. 

By  the  spring  of  18 16  the  tables  have  been  turned  with  a 
vengeance.  Cameron,  the  Nor' wester,  has  been  seized  and  sent 
to  Hudson  Bay  to  be  expelled  from  the  country.  Fort  Gibral- 
tar has  been  pulled  clown  and  the  timbers  used  to  strengthen 
Fort  Douglas,  whose  pointed  cannon  command  all  passage  up 
and  down  Red  River.  It  was  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  the 
haughty  Nor'westers  would  submit  to  expulsion  without  a  blow. 
From  Athabasca,  from  New  Caledonia,  from  Qu'Appelle  .  .  . 
they  rally  their  doughtiest  fighters  under  Cuthbert  Grant,  the 


192 


CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


MONTREAL^ 
EXPRESS  6/ 
WAV  of  L.WINNIPEG" 


>V. 


\/' 


half-breed  Plain  Ranger.  From  Montreal  and  Fort  William  come 
spurring  the  leading  partners,  with  one  hundred  and  seventy 
French-Canadian  bullies,  and  a  brass  cannon  concealed  under  oil- 
cloth in  a  long  boat.  The  object  of  the  Plain  Rangers  is  to  meet 
the  up-coming  partners  with  supplies  for  the  year ;  but  is  that 

any  reason  for  the 
riders  who  are 
striking  eastward 
from  Assiniboine 
to  Red  River, 
decking  them- 
selves out  in  war 
paint  and  strip- 
ping like  savages 
before  battle?  The 
object  of  the  part- 
ners is  to  meet  the 
Plain  Rangers  on 
Red  River  ;  but  is 
that  any  reason  for 
bringing  a  cannon 
concealed  under 
oilcloth  all  the  way 
from  Lake  Supe- 
rior ?  Or  do  men 
fighting  a  life-and- 
death  struggle  for 
the  thing  the  world 
calls  success  ever  acknowledge  plain  motives  within  themselves 
at  all  ?  Is  it  not  rather  the  blind  brute  instinct  of  self-protection, 
forfend  what  may  ? 

"  Listen,  white  men  !  Beware  !  Beware  !  "  the  Cree  chief 
Peguis  warns  Governor  Semple.  What  means  the  spectacle  of 
white  brothers,  who  preach  peace,  preparing  for  war  over  a  few 
beaver  pelts  ?  Chief  Peguis  cannot  understand,  except  this  is 
the  way  of  white  men. 


From  ASSINiSO  VF. 
QU'   APPELLEE* 


/--- 


RED   RIVER   SETTLEMENT,   1S16-1S20 


THE   STORM   GATHERS  393 

And  now,  unluckily  for  Governor  Semple,  he  quarrels  with 
his  adviser,  Colin  Robertson.  Robertson,  from  his  early  train- 
ing in  Northwest  ranks,  reads  the  signs,  and  is  for  striking  a 
blow  before  the  enemy  can  strike  him.  Semple  is  still  talking 
peace.  Robertson  leaves  Red  River  in  disgust,  and  departs  for 
Hudson  Bay  to  take  ship  for  England.  The  Plain  Rangers,  it 
may  be  explained,  have  uttered  the  wild  threat  that  if  they 
"  can  catch  Robertson,"  they  will  avenge  the  destruction  of 
Fort  Gibraltar  "  by  skinning  him  alive  and  feeding  him  to  the 
dogs."  Also  it  is  well  known,  Nor'westers  of  Qu'Appelle  have 
muttered  angry  prophecies  about  "  the  ground  being  drenched 
with  the  blood  of  the  colonists." 

Still  Semple  talks  peace,  which  is  a  good  thing  in  its  place  ; 
but  this  is  n't  the  place. 

"  My  Governor  !  My  Governor  !  "  pleads  an  old  hunter  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  with  Semple  ;  "  are  you  not  afraid  ?  The  half- 
breeds  are  gathering  to  kill  you  !  " 

Semple  laughs.  Pshaw!  He  has  law  on  his  side.  Law!  What  is 
law  ?  The  old  hunter  of  the  lawless  wilds  does  n't  know  that  word. 
That  word  does  n't  come  as  far  west  as  the  Pays  a"  en  Haut. 

It  is  sunset  of  June  18,  18 16.  Old  chief  Peguis  comes  again 
to  the  Hudson's  Bay  fort  on  Red  River. 

"Governor  of  the  gard'ners  !  "  he  solemnly  warns;  "gov- 
ernor of  the  land  workers  and  gard'ners,  listen  !  .  .  ."  Not 
much  does  he  add,  after  the  fashion  of  his  race.  Only  this, 
"Let  me  bring  my  warriors  to  protect  you  /" 

Semple  laughs  at  such  fears. 

It  is  sunset  of  June  19.  A  soft  west  wind  has  set  the  prairie 
grass  rippling  like  a  green  sea  between  the  fort  and  the  sun 
hanging  low  at  the  western  sky  line.  A  boy  on  the  lookout 
above  one  of  the  bastion  towers  of  Fort  Douglas  suddenly 
shouts,  "  The  half-breeds  are  coming  !  " 

Semple  ascends  the  tower  and  looks  through  a  field  glass. 
There  is  a  line  of  sixty  or  seventy  horsemen,  all  armed,  not 
coming  to  the  fort,  but  moving  diagonally  across  from  the 
Assiniboine  to  the  Red  towards  the  colony.    And  then,  north 


394 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OE  THE  NORTH 


towards  the  colony,  is  wildest  clamor,  — people  in  ox  carts,  peo- 
ple on  horseback,  people  on  foot,  stampeding  for  the  shelter  of 
the  fort.  And  up  to  this  moment  absolutely  nothing  has  occurred 
to  create  this  terror. 

"  Let  twenty  men  follow  me,"  orders  Semple  ;  and  he  marches 
out,  followed  by  twenty-seven  armed  men. 

As  they  wade  through  the  waist-high  hay  fields  they  meet 
the  fleeing  colonists. 

"  Keep  your  back  to  the  river !  "  shouts'  one  colonist,  convoy- 
ing his  family.  "  They  are  painted,  Governor  !  Don't  let  them 
surround  you." 

Semple  sends  back  to  the  fort  for  a  cannon  to  be  trundled  out. 

Young  Lieutenant  Holte's  gun  goes  off  by  mistake.  Semple 
turns  on  him  with  fury  and  bids  him  have  a  care  :  there  is  to  be 
no  firing. 

The  half-breeds  have  turned  from  their  trail  and  are  coming 
forward  at  a  gallop. 

"  There  's  Grant,  the  Plain  Ranger,  Governor  !  Let  me  shoot 
him,"  pleads  one  Hudson's  Bay  man. 

"  God  have  mercy  on  our  souls  !  "  mutters  one  of  the  colo- 
nists, counting  the  foe  ;    "  but  we  are  all  dead  men." 

All  the  world  knows  the  rest.  At  a  knoll  where  grew  some 
trees,  a  spot  now  known  in  Winnipeg  on  North  Main  Street  as 
Seven  Oaks,  Grant,  the  Ranger,  sent  a  half-breed,  Boucher, 
forward  to  parley. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  demands  Semple. 

"  We  want  our  fort !  " 

"  Go  to  your  fort,  then  !  " 

"  Rascal !    You  have  destroyed  our  fort !  " 

"  Dare  you  to  speak  so  to  me  ?    Arrest  him  !  " 

Boucher  slips  from  his  saddle.  The  Plain  Rangers  think  he 
has  been  shot.  Instantaneously  from  both  sides  crashes  musketry 
fire.  Semple  falls  with  a  broken  thigh.  Before  Grant  can  con- 
trol his  murderous  crew  or  obtain  aid  for  the  wounded  governor, 
a  scamp  of  a  half-breed  has  slashed  the  fallen  man  to  death. 
Two  or  three  Hudson's  Bay  men  escape  through  the  long  grass 


THE   NOR'WESTERS  VICTORIOUS  395 

and  swim  across  Red  River.  Two  or  three  more  save  themselves 
by  instant  surrender.  For  the  rest  of  the  twenty-seven,  they  lie 
where  they  have  fallen.  They  are  stripped,  mutilated,  cut  to 
pieces.    Only  one  Nor' wester  is  killed,  only  one  wounded. 

Later,  in  order  to  save  the  lives  of  the  settlers,  Fort  Douglas 
is  surrendered.  For  a  second  time  the  colonists  are  dispersed. 
Before  going  down  Red  River  in  flatboats  two  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  people  go  out  with  Chief  Peguis  by  night  and  bury  the 
dead  ;  but  they  have  no  time  to  dig  deep  graves,  and  a  few  days 
later  the  wolves  have  ripped  up  the  bodies. 

Near  Lake  Winnipeg  the  fleeing  colonists  meet  the  Northwest 
partners  with  their  one  hundred  and  seventy  men.  No  need  to 
announce  what  the  spectacle  of  the  terrified  colonists  means.  A 
wild  whoop  rends  the  air.  "  Thank  Providence  it  was  all  over  be- 
fore we  came,"  writes  one  devout  Nor' wester  ;  "  for  we  intended 
to  storm  the  fort."  Both  crews  pause.  The  Nor'westers  interro- 
gate the  settlers.  Semple's  private  papers  are  seized.  Also,  two 
Hudson's  Bay  men  who  took  part  in  the  Seven  Oaks  fight  are 
arrested,  to  be  carried  on  down  to  Northwest  headquarters  on 
Lake  Superior.    Then  the  settlers  go  on  to  Lake  Winnipeg. 

At  the  various  camping  places  on  the  way  clown  to  Fort 
William,  those  two  Hudson's  Bay  prisoners  overhear  strange 
threats.  It  is  night  on  the  Lake  of  the  Woods.  Voices  of 
Northwest  partners  sound  through  the  dark.  They  are  talking 
of  Selkirk  coming  to  the  rescue  of  his  people  with  an  armed 
force.  Says  the  wild  voice  of  a  Nor'wester  whose  brother  had 
been  killed  by  a  Hudson's  Bay  man  some  years  before,  "  There 
are  fine  quiet  places  along  Winnipeg  River  if  he  comes  this 
way."  .  .  .  Then  scraps  of  conversation.  .  .  .  Then,  "  The  half- 
breeds  could  capture  him  when  he  is  asleep."  .  .  .  Then  words 
too  low  to  be  heard.  .  .  .  Then,  "They  could  have  the  Indians 
shoot  him."  .  .  .  Then  in  voice  of  authority  restraining  the  wild 
folly  of  a  bloodthirst  for  vengeance,  "  Things  have  gone  too  far, 
but  we  can  throw  the  blame  on  the  Indians." 

The  wild  words  of  a  man  gone  mad  for  revenge  must  not  be 
taken  as  the  policy  of  a  great  commercial  company. 


396  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Meantime,  where  was  Selkirk  ?  He  had  arrived  in  Montreal. 
Secret  coureur,  whose  adventures  I  have  told  elsewhere,  had 
carried  him  word  of  the  dangers  impending  over  his  colony.  He 
at  (Mice  appealed  to  the  Governor  General  for  a  military  force  to 
protect  the  settlers,  but  it  must  be  recalled  how  Upper  and 
Lower  Canada  were  to  be  governed  under  the  Act  of  1791. 
There  were  to  be  the  governor,  the  legislative  council  appointed 
by  the  crown,  and  the  representative  assembly.  The  legislative 
council  was  entirely  dominated  by  the  Northwest  Company.  Of 
the  different  Quebec  courts,  there  was  scarcely  a  judge  who 
was  not  interested  directly  or  indirectly  in  the  Northwest  Com- 
pany. Lord  Selkirk  could  obtain  no  aid  which  would  conflict 
with  that  company's  policy.  Then  Selkirk  petitioned  the  Gov- 
ernor that,  in  view  of  the  threats  against  himself,  he  might  be 
granted  the  commission  of  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  permission 
to  take  a  personal  bodyguard  at  his  own  cost  to  the  west. 
These  requests  the  Governor  granted. 

Thereupon,  Selkirk  gathers  up  some  two  hundred  of  the 
De  Meuron  and  De  Watteville  regiments,  mercenaries  dis- 
banded after  the  War  of  18 12,  and  sets  out  for  the  west.  Not 
aware  that  Robertson  has  left  Red  River,  he  sends  him  word 
to  keep  the  colonists  together  and  to  expect  help  by  way  of 
the  states  from  the  Sault  in  order  to  avoid  touching  at  the 
Nor' westers'  post  at  Fort  William.  The  coureur  with  this  mes- 
sage is  waylaid  by  the  Nor' westers,  but  Selkirk  himself,  pre- 
ceded by  his  former  governor,  Miles  MacDonell,  has  gone  only 
as  far  as  the  Sault  when  word  comes  back  of  the  Seven  Oaks 
massacre.  What  to  do  now  ?  He  can  obtain  no  justice  in  East- 
ern Canada.  Two  justices  of  the  peace  at  the  Sault  refuse  to 
be  involved  in  the  quarrel  by  accompanying  him.  Selkirk  goes 
on  without  them,  accompanied  by  the  two  hundred  hired  sol- 
diers ;  but  instead  of  proceeding  to  Red  River  by  Minnesota, 
as  he  had  first  planned,  he  strikes  straight  for  Fort  William, 
the  headquarters  of  the  Nor'westers. 

He  arrives  at  the  fort  August  12,  only  a  few  days  after  the 
Northwest   partners   had    come    clown   from    the    scene    of    the 


SELKIRK   TO  THE    RESCUE 


>97 


massacre  at  Red  River.  Cannon  are  planted  opposite  Fort  Wil- 
liam. Things  have  "gone  too  far."  The  Nor'westers  capitulate 
without  a  stroke.  Then  as  justice  of  the  peace,  my  Lord  Selkirk 
arrests  all  the  partners  but  one  and  sends  them  east  to  stand 
trial  for  the  massacre  of 
Seven  Oaks.  The  one 
partner  not  sent  east  was 
a  fuddled  old  drunkard 
long  since  retired  from 
active  work.  This  man 
now  executes  a  deed  of 
sale  to  my  Lord  Selkirk 
for  Fort  William  and  its 
furs.  The  man  was  so  in- 
toxicated that  he  could 
not  write,  so  the  afore- 
time governor,  Miles 
MacDonell,  writes  out 
the  bargain,  which  one 
could  wish  so  great  a 
philanthropist  as  Selkirk 
had  not  touched  with 
tongs.  Before  midwinter 
of  i  S 1 7  has  passed,  the 
De  Meuron  soldiers  have 
crossed  Minnesota  and 
gone  down  Red  River 
to  Fort  Douglas.  One 
stormy  night  they  scale 
the  wall  and  bundle  the 
Northwest  usurpers  out, 
bag  and  baggage. 

July  of  i S 1 7  comes  Selkirk  himself  to  the  Promised  Land. 
There  is  no  record  that  I  have  been  able  to  find  of  his  thoughts 
on  first  nearing  the  ground  for  which  so  much  blood  had  been 
shed,  and   for  which   he  himself  was  vet  to  suffer  much;   but 


MONUMENT  TO  COMMEMORATE  THE   MASSACRE 
OF   SEVEN   OAKS 


398  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF    THE  NORTH 

one  can  venture  to  say  that  his  most  daring  hope  did  not  grasp 
the  empire  that  was  to  grow  from  the  seed  he  had  planted.  He 
meets  the  Indians  in  treaty  for  their  lands.  He  greets  his  colo- 
nists in  the  open  one  sunny  August  day,  speaking  personally  to 
each  and  deeding  over  to  them  land  free  of  all  charge.  "This 
land  I  give  for  your  church,"  he  said,  standing  on  the  ground 
which  the  cathedral  now  occupies.  "That  plot  shall  be  for 
your  school,"  pointing  across  the  gully;  "and  in  memory  of 
your  native  land,  let  the  parish  be  called  Kildonan." 

Of  the  trials  and  counter  trials  between  the  two  companies, 
there  is  not  space  to  tell  here.  Selkirk  was  forced  to  pay 
heavy  damages  for  his  course  at  Fort  William,  but  the  courts 
of  Eastern  Canada  record  not  a  single  conviction  against  the 
Nor' westers  for  the  massacre  of  Seven  Oaks.  Selkirk  retired 
shattered  in  health  to  Europe,  where  he  died  in  1820.  The 
same  year  passed  away  Alexander  MacKenzie,  his  old-time  rival. 

The  truth  is,  each  company  had  gone  too  far  and  was  on  the 
verge  of  ruin.  From  Athabasca  came  the  furs  that  prevented 
bankruptcy,  and  whichever  company  could  drive  the  other  from 
Athabasca  could  practically  force  its  rival  to  ruin  or  union. 
When  Colin  Robertson  had  rallied  the  dispersed  colonists  from 
Lake  Winnipeg,  he  had  left  John  Clarke  to  conduct  the  two 
hundred  Canadian  voyageurs  to  Athabasca  for  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company.  Clarke  had  been  a  Nor' wester  before  he  joined 
Astor,  and  was  a  born  fighter,  idolized  by  the  Indians.  So  con- 
fident was  he  of  success  now  that  he  galloped  his  canoes  up 
the  Saskatchewan  without  pause  to  gather  provisions.  Once 
on  the  ground  on  Athabasca  Lake,  he  divided  his  party  into 
two  or  three  bands  and  sent  them  foraging  to  the  Nor' westers' 
forts  and  hunting  grounds  up  Peace  River,  down  Slave  Lake, 
at  Athabasca  itself.  Weakened  by  division  and  without  food 
to  keep  together,  his  men  fell  easy  prey  to  the  wily  Nor'- 
westers.  Of  those  on  Slave  Lake  eighteen  died  from  starva- 
tion. Those  on  Peace  River  were  captured  and  literally  whipped 
out   of   the  country,   signing   oaths  never  to  return.    Those  at 


BANDITTI  WARFARE   IN   ATHABASCA  399 

Athabasca  being  leading  officers  were  held  prisoners.  Mean- 
while the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  is  defeated  at  Seven  Oaks 
and  victorious  at  Fort  William.  The  Nor'westers  at  Athabasca 
were  keen  to  keep  the  frightened  Indians  of  the  north  ignorant 
that  Selkirk  had  triumphed  at  Fort  William,  but  the  news 
traveled  over  the  two  thousand  miles  of  prairie  in  that  strange 
hunter  fashion  known  as  "moccasin  telegram,"  and  the  story 
is  told  how  the  captured  Hudson's  Bay  officers  let  the  secret 
out  for  the  benefit  of  the  Indians  now  afraid  to  carry  their  hunt 
to  a  Hudson's  Bay  man. 

Revels  and  all-night  carousals  marked  the  winter  with  the 
triumphant  Nor'westers  of  Athabasca  Lake.  Often,  when  wild 
drinking  songs  were  ringing  in  the  Nor'westers'  dining  hall,  the 
Hudson's  Bay  men  would  be  brought  in  to  furnish  a  butt  for 
their  merciless  victors.  One  night,  when  the  hall  was  full  of 
Indians,  one  of  the  Northwest  bullies  began  to  brawl  out  a  song 
in  celebration  of  the  Seven  Oaks  affair. 

"The  H.  B.  C.  came  up  a  hill,  and  up  a  hill  they  came, 
The  H.  B.  C.  came  up  the  hill,  but  down  they  went  again." 

Tired  of  their  rude  horseplay,  one  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
officers  spoke  up  :  "  Y'  hae  niver  asked  me  for  a  song.  I  hae  a 
varse  o'  me  ain  compaesin." 

Then  to  the  utter  amaze  of  the  drunken  listeners  and  aston- 
ishment of  the  Indians,  the  game  old  officer  trolled  off  this  stave  : 

"  But  Selkirk  brave  went  rip  a  hill,  and  to  Fort  William  came  ! 
When  in  he  popped  and  out  from  thence  could  not  be  driven  again." 

The  thunderstruck  Nor' wester  leaped  to  his  feet  with  a  yell : 
"A  hundred  guineas  for  the  name  of  the  men  who  brought  that 
news  here." 

"  A  hundred  guineas  for  twa  lines  of  me  ain  compaesin  !  Ex- 
travagant, sir,"  returns  the  canny  Scot. 

From  accounts  held  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  Mon- 
treal lawyers  it  is  seen  that  Clarke's  expedition  cost  the  Company 
^20,000. 


4<DO  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Before  the  massacre  of  Seven  Oaks  Colin  Robertson  had 
gone  down  to  Hudson  Bay  in  high  dudgeon  with  Semple,  intend- 
ing to  take  ship  for  England  ;  but  that  fall  the  ice  drive  pre- 
vented one  ship  from  leaving  the  bay,  and  Robertson  was 
stranded  at  Moose  Factory  for  the  winter,  whither  coureurs 
brought  him  word  of  the  Seven  Oaks  tragedy  and  Selkirk's 
victory  at  Fort  William.  Taking  an  Indian  for  guide,  Robert- 
son set  out  on  snowshoes  for  Montreal,  following  the  old  Ottawa 
trail  traversed  by  Radisson  and  Iberville  long  ago.  Montreal 
he  found  in  a  state  of  turmoil  almost  verging  on  riot  over  the 
imprisonment  of  the  Northwest  partners,  whom  Selkirk  had 
sent  east.  Nightly  the  goals  were  illuminated  as  for  festivals. 
Nightly  sound  of  wandering  musicians  came  from  the  cell 
windows,  where  loyal  friends  were  serenading  the  imprisoned 
partners.  They  were  released,  of  course,  and  acquitted  from 
the  charge  of  responsibility  for  the  massacre  of  Seven  Oaks. 

Presently  Robertson  finds  himself  behind  the  bars  for  his  part 
in  destroying  Fort  Gibraltar  and  arresting  Duncan  Cameron. 
He  too  is  acquitted,  and  he  tells  us  frankly  that  a  private 
arrangement  had  been  made  beforehand  with  the  presiding 
judge.  Probably  if  the  Nor' westers  had  been  as  frank,  the  same 
influence  would  explain  their  acquittal. 

Robertson  found  himself  free  just  about  the  time  Lord  Sel- 
kirk came  back  from  Red  River  by  way  of  the  Mississippi  in 
order  to  avoid  those  careful  plans  for  his  welfare  on  the  part  of 
the  Nor' westers  at  "the  quiet  places  along  Winnipeg  River." 
The  Governor  of  Canada  had  notified  members  of  both  com- 
panies unofficially  that  the  English  government  advised  the  rivals 
to  find  some  basis  of  union,  which  practically  meant  that  if  the 
investigations  under  way  were  pushed  to  extremes,  both  sides 
might  find  themselves  in  awkward  plight  ;  but  the  fight  had 
gone  beyond  the  period  of  pure  commercialism.  It  was  now  a 
matter  of  deadly  personal  hate  between  man  and  man,  which, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  has  been  carried  clown  by  the  descendants 
of  the  old  fighters  almost  to  the  present  day.  Each  side  hoped 
to  drive  the  other  to  bankruptcy  ;    and  the  last  throes   of  the 


IN  ATHABASCA 


401 


deadly  struggle  were  to  be  in  Athabasca,  the  richest  fur  field. 
While  Selkirk  is  fighting  his  cause  in  the  courts,  he  gives 
Robertson  carte  blanche  to  gather  two  hundred  more  French 
voyageurs  and  proceed  to  the  Athabasca. 

Midsummer  of  18 19  finds  the  stalwart  Robertson  crossing 
Lake  Winnipeg  to  ascend  the  Saskatchewan.  At  the  mouth  of 
the  Saskatchewan  a  miserable  remnant  of  terrified  men  from 
the  last  Athabasca  expedition  is  added  to  Robertson's  party ; 


TRACKING   ON    ATHABASCA    RIVER 

and  John  Clarke,  breathing  death  and  destruction  against  the 
Nor'westers,  goes  along  as  lieutenant  to  Robertson.  Every- 
where are  signs  of  the  lawless  conditions  of  the  fur  trade. 
Not  an  Indian  dare  speak  to  a  Hudson's  Bay  man  on  pain  of 
horsewhipping.  Instead  of  canoes  gliding  up  and  down  the 
Saskatchewan  like  birds  of  passage,  reign  a  silence  and  soli- 
tude as  of  the  dead.  Though  Robertson  bids  his  voyageurs 
sing  and  fire  off  muskets  as  signals  for  trade,  not  a  soul  comes 
down  to  the  river  banks  till  the  fleet  of  advancing  traders  is 
well  away  from  the  Saskatchewan  and  halfway  across  the 
height  of  land   towards   the  Athabasca. 


4-02 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


The  amazement  of  the  Nor'westers  at  Fort  Chippewyan  in 
Athabasca  when  Robertson  pulled  ashore  at  the  conglomeration 
of  huts  known  as  Fort  Wedderburn,  may  be  guessed.  Two  or 
three  of  the  partners  ran  clown  to  the  shore  and  called  out  that 
they  would  like  to  parley  ;  but  John  Clarke,  filled  with  memory 
of  former  outrages  and  rocking  the  canoe  in  his  fury  so  that  it 
almost  upset,  met  the  overtures  with  a  volley  of  stentorian  abuse 
that  sent  the  Nor'westers  scampering  and  set  Robertson  laugh- 
ing till  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks. 

The  change  of  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  Nor'westers  was 
easily  explained.  The  most  of  their  men  were  absent  on  the 
hunting  field.  In  a  few  weeks  Robertson  had  his  huts  in  order 
and  had  dispatched  his  trappers  down  to  Slave  Lake  and  west- 
ward up  Peace  River.  Then,  in  October,  came  more  Nor' west 
partners  from  Montreal.  The  Nor'westers  were  stronger  now 
and  not  so  peacefully  inclined.  Nightly  the  French  bullies,  well 
plied  with  whisky,  would  come  across  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  fort, 
bawling  out  challenge  to  fight  ;  but  Robertson  held  his  men  in 
hand  and  kept  his  powder  dry. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  October  the  i  ith,  Robertson's  valet 
roused  him  from  bed  with  word  that  a  man  had  been  acci- 
dentally shot.  Slipping  a  pistol  in  his  pocket  and  all  unsus- 
picious of  trickery,  Robertson  clashed  out.  It  happened  that 
the  most  of  his  men  were  at  a  slight  distance  from  his  fort.  Be- 
fore they  could  rally  to  his  rescue  he  was  knocked  clown,  dis- 
armed, surrounded  by  the  Nor'westers,  thrown  into  a  boat, 
and  carried  back  to  their  fort  a  captive.  In  vain  he  stormed 
almost  apoplectic  with  rage,  and  tried  to  send  back  Indian 
messengers  to  his  men.  The  Nor'westers  laughed  at  him  good- 
naturedly  and  relegated  him  to  quarters  in  one  room  of  a  log 
hut,  where  sole  furnishings  were  a  berth  bed  and  a  fireplace 
without  a  floor.  Robertson's  only  possessions  in  captivity  were 
the  clothes  on  his  back,  a  jackknife,  a  small  pencil,  and  a  note- 
book ;  but  he  probably  consoled  himself  that  his  men  were 
now  on  guard,  and,  outnumbering  the  Nor'westers  two  to  one, 
could  hold  the  ground  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  that  winter.     As 


ROBERTSON    ESCAPES 


40: 


time  passed  the  captive  Robertson  began  to  wrack  his  brains 
how  to  communicate  with  his  men.  It  was  a  drinking  age  ;  and 
'  the  fur  traders  had  the  reputation  of  capacity  to  drink  any  other 
class  of  men  off  their  legs.  Robertson  feigned  an  unholy  thirst. 
Rapping  for  his  guard,  he  requested  that  messengers  might  be 
sent  across  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  fort  for  a  keg  of  liquor.  It 
can  be  guessed  how  readily  the  Nor' westers  complied ;  but 
Robertson  took  good  care,  when  the  guard  was  absent  and  the 
door  locked,  to  pour  out  most  of  the  whisky  on  the  earth  floor. 
Then  taking  slips  of  paper  from  his  notebook,  he  cut  them  in 
strips  the  width  of  a  spool.  On  these  he  wrote  cipher  and 
mysterious  instructions,  which  only  his  men  could  understand, 
giving  full  information  of  the  Nor'westers'  movements,  bidding 
his  people  hold  their  own,  and  ordering  them  to  send  messages 
down  to  the  new  Hudson's  Bay  governor  at  Red  River,  —  Wil- 
liam Williams, — to  place  his  De  Meuron  soldiers  in  ambush 
along  the  Grand  Rapids  of  the  Saskatchewan  to  catch  the 
Northwest  partners  on  their  way'  to  Montreal  the  next  spring. 
These  slips  of  paper  he  rolled  up  tight  as  a  spool  and  ham- 
mered into  the  bunghole  of  the  barrel.  Then  he  plastered  clay 
over  all  to  hide  the  paper,  and  bade  the  guard  carry  this  keg  of 
whisky  back  to  the  H.  B.  C.  fort ;  it  was  musty,  Robertson  com- 
plained ;  let  the  men  rinse  out  the  keg  and  put  in  a  fresh  supply  ! 

All  that  winter  Robertson,  the  Hudson's  Bay  man,  captive 
in  the  Nor'westers'  fort,  sent  weekly  commands  to  his  men  by 
means  of  the  whisky  kegs  ;  but  in  the  spring  his  trick  was  dis- 
covered, and  the  angry  Nor'westers  decided  he  was  too  clever 
a  man  to  be  kept  on  the  field.  They  would  ship  him  out  of  the 
country  when  their  furs  were  sent  east. 

On  the  way  east  he  succeeded  in  escaping  at  Cumberland 
House.  Waiting  only  a  few  hours,  he  launched  out  in  his  canoe 
and  followed  on  the  trail  of  the  Northwest  partners,  on  clown 
to  see  what  would  happen  at  Grand  Rapids,  where  the  Sas- 
katchewan flows  into  Lake  Winnipeg.  A  jubilant  shout  from  a 
canoe  turning  a  bend  in  the  river  presently  announced  the  news  : 
"All    the    Northwest  partners    captured!"    When    Robertson 


404  CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

came  to  Grand  Rapids  he  found  Governor  Williams  and  the 
De  Meurons  in  possession.  Cannon  pointed  across  the  river 
below  the  rapids.  The  Northwest  partners  were  prisoners  in  a 
hut.  The  voyageurs'  were  allowed  to  go  on  down  to  Montreal 
with  the  furs.  This  last  act  in  the  great  struggle  ended  tragic- 
ally enough.  What  was  to  be  done  with  the  captured  partners  ? 
They  could  not  be  sent  to  Eastern  Canada.  Pending  investiga- 
tions for  the  union  of  the  companies,  Governor  Williams  sent 
them  to  York  Factory,  Hudson  Bay,  whence  some  took  ship  to 
England,  others  set  out  overland  on  snowshoes  for  Canada  ;  but 
in  the  scuffle  at  Grand  Rapids,  Frobisher,  one  of  the  oldest 
partners,  with  a  reputation  of  great  cruelty  in  his  treatment  of 
Hudson's  Bay  men,  had  been  violently  clubbed  on  the  head 
with  a  gun.  From  that  moment  he  became  a  raving  maniac, 
and  the  Hudson's  Bay  people  did  not  know  what  to  do  with 
such  a  captive.  He  must  not  be  permitted  to  go  home  to  Eng- 
land. His  condition  was  too  terrible  evidence  against  them  ;  so 
they  kept  him  prisoner  in  the  outhouses  of  York  Factory,  with 
two  faithful  Nor'wester  half-breeds  as  personal  attendants. 

One  dark  cold  night  towards  the  first  of  October  Frobisher 
succeeded  in  escaping  through  the  broken  bars  of  his  cell  win- 
dow. A  leap  took  him  over  the  pickets.  By  chance  an  old 
canoe  lay  on  Hayes  River.  With  this  he  began  to  ascend  stream 
for  the  interior,  paddling  wildly,  laughing  wildly,  raving  and 
singing.  The  two  half-breeds  knew  that  a  voyage  to  the  inte- 
rior at  this  season  without  snowshoes,  food,  or  heavy  clothing, 
meant  certain  death  ;  but  they  followed  their  master  faithfully 
as  black  slaves.  Wherever  night  found  them  they  turned  the 
canoe  upside  down  and  slept  under  it.  Fish  lines  supplied  food, 
and  the  deserted  hut  of  some  hunter  occasionally  gave  them 
shelter  for  the  night.  Winter  set  in  early.  The  ice  edging  of 
the  river  cut  the  birch  canoe.  Abandoning  it,  they  went  for- 
ward on  foot.  From  York  Fort,  Hudson  Bay,  the  nearest  North- 
west post  was  seven  hundred  miles.  By  the  end  of  October 
they  had  not  gone  half  the  distance.  Then  came  one  of  those 
changes  so  frequent  in  northern  climes,  —  a  sunburst  of  warm 


FROBISHER'S   DEATH 


405 


weather  following  the  first  early  winter,  turning  all  the  frozen 
fields  to  swimming  marshes,  and  the  travelers  had  no  canoe. 
By  this  time  Frobisher  was  too  weak  to  walk.  As  his  body 
failed  his  mind  rallied,  and  he  begged  the  two  half-breeds  to 
go  on  without  him,  as  delay  meant  the  death  of  all  three  ;  but 
the  faithful  fellows  carried  him  by  turns  on  their  backs.  They 
themselves  were  now  so  emaciated  they  were  making  but  a 
few  miles  a  day.  Their  moccasins  had  been  worn  to  tatters, 
and  all  three  looked  more  like  skeletons  than  living  men.    Then, 


H.  vn:lv"!ic 
PLAXS  Pf  YOIUCand  PRIffCK  ofWALES'S  1'ORTS 


A.  ,  ftyirji/m- Tl)   0/fuM  -^ 

B .  Otvrt  "tfthbtal J  T.  It'll/it  i.i  tin  ft ■  ffjtmtfatafii 

C  Uhvttlina  iffautl.  F  j/ovtnmv  CmkiPtnm — 

G  '.  t/huW/ta  H>  drfindtfu  Oatt .. 

JOUNCE  CFWALIuSlTORT.  &£$%> 


1  !<■  7/  1  >rdtrit 'thtrtforc  tv  tap 
[  K  H?u„  f/lt-  Cannon  wtu  ty-<£ 

■int  fjl/u/r  up  aee#rci<>y  tr> 


PLAXS    OF   YORK    AND    PRINCE    OF   WALES    FORTS 

the  third  week  of  November,  Frobisher  could  go  no  farther, 
and  the  servants'  strength  failed.  Building  a  fire  in  a  sheltered 
place  for  their  master,  the  two  faithful  fellows  left  Frobisher 
somewhere  west  of  Lake  Winnipeg.  Two  days  later  they  crept 
into  a  Northwest  post  too  weak  to  speak,  and  handed  the  North- 
westers a  note  scrawled  by  Frobisher,  asking  them  to  send  a 
rescue  party.  Frobisher  was  found  lying  across  the  ashes  of  the 
fire.    Life  was  extinct. 


In  1820  the  union  of  the  companies  put  an  end  to  the  ruinous 
and   criminal   struggle.    George  Simpson,  afterwards  knighted, 


406 


CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


who  has  been  sent  to  look  over  matters  in  Athabasca,  is  appointed 
governor,  and  Nicholas  Garry,  one  of  the  London  directors, 
comes  out  to  appoint  the  officers  of  the  united  companies 
to  their  new  districts.  The  scene  is  one  for  artist  brush,  —  the 
last  meeting  of  the  partners  at  Fort  William,  Hudson's  Bay 
men  and  Nor' westers,  such  deadly  enemies  they  would  not 
speak,  sitting  in  the  great  dining  hall,  glowering  at  each  other 
across  tables  :  George  Simpson  at  one  end  of  the  tables,  pomp- 
ously dressed  in  ruffles 
and  satin  coat  and  silk 
breeches,  vainly  endeav- 
oring to  keep  up  suave 
conversation ;  Nicholas 
Garry  at  the  other  end 
of  the  table,  also  very 
pompous  and  smooth,  but 
with  a  look  on  his  face 
as  if  he  were  sitting 
above  a  powder  mine,  the 
Highland  pipers  dressed 
in  tartans,  standing  at 
each  end  of  the  hall,  fill- 
ing the  room  with  the 
drone  and  the  skurl  of 
the  bagpipes. 

By  the  union  of  the 
companies  both  sides 
avoided  proving  their  rights  in  the  law  courts.  Most  important 
of  all,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  escaped  proving  its  charter 
valid  ;  for  the  charter  applied  only  to  Hudson  Bay  and  adjacent 
lands  "  not  occupied  by  other  Christian  powers  "  ;  but  on  the 
union  taking  place,  the  British  government  granted  to  the  new 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  license  of  exclusive  monopoly  to  all  the 
Indian  territory,  meaning  (i)  Hudson  Bay  Country,  (2)  the  inte- 
rior, (3)  New  Caledonia  as  well  as  Oregon.  In  fact,  the  union  left 
the  fur  traders  ten  times  more  strongly  intrenched  than  before. 


j0j$fe 

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SIR  GEORGE  SIMPSON,  GOVERNOR  OF  HUDSON  S 
BAY    COMPANY,   1S20 


THE  PACIFIC   EMPIRE 


407 


By  the  new  arrangement  Dr.  John  McLoughlin  was  appointed 
chief  factor  of  the  western  territories  known  as  Oregon  and  New 
Caledonia.  When  the  War  of  18  12  closed,  treaty  provided  that 
Oregon  should  be  open  to  the  joint  occupancy  of  English  and 
American  traders  till  the  matter  of  the  western  boundary  could 
be  finally  settled.  Oregon  roughly  included  all  territory  between 
the  Columbia  and  the  Spanish  fort  at  San  Francisco,  namely, 
Washington,  Oregon,  Northern  California,  Idaho,  Utah,  Nevada, 
parts  of  Montana  and  Wyoming.  It  was  cheaper  to  send  provi- 
sions round  by  sea  to  the  fur  posts  of  New  Caledonia,  in  mod- 
ern British  Columbia,  than  across  the  continent  by  way  of  the 
Saskatchewan;  so  McLoughlin's  district  also  included  all  the 
territory  far  as  the  Russian  possessions  in  Alaska. 

This  part  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  history  belongs  to 
the  United  States  rather  than  Canada,  but  it  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  just  as  the  French  fur  traders  explored  the  Miss- 
issippi far  south  as  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  so  English  fur  traders 
first  explored  the  western  states  far  south  as  New  Spain.  This 
western  field  was  perhaps  the  most  picturesque  of  all  the  Hud- 
son's'Bay  Company's  possessions. 

Fort  Vancouver,  ninety  miles  inland  from  the  sea  on  the 
Columbia,  was  the  capital  of  this  transmontane  kingdom,  and 
yearly  till  1846  the  fur  brigades  set  out  from  Fort  Vancouver 
two  or  three  hundred  strong  by  pack  horse  and  canoe.  Well- 
known  officers  became  regular  leaders  of  the  different  brigades. 
There  was  Ross,  who  led  the  Rocky  Mountain  Brigade  inland 
across  the  Divide  to  the  buffalo  ranges  of  Montana.  There 
was  Ogden,  son  of  the  Chief  Justice  in  Montreal,  who  led 
the  Southern  Brigade  up  Snake  River  to  Salt  Lake  and  the 
Nevada  desert  and  Humboldt  River  and  Mt.  Shasta,  all  of 
which  regions  except  Salt  Lake  he  was  first  to  discover.  There 
was  Tom  McKay,  son  of  the  McKay  who  had  crossed  to  the 
Pacific  with  MacKenzie,  who,  dressed  as  a  Spanish  cavalier,  led 
the  pack-horse  brigades  down  the  coast  past  the  Rogue  River 
Indians  and  the  Klamath  Lakes  to  San  Francisco,  where  Dr. 
Glen  Rae  had  opened  a  fort  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 


4o8 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 


Then  there  was  the  New  Caledonia  Brigade,  two  hundred  strong, 
which  set  out  from  Fort  Vancouver  up  the  Columbia  in  canoes 
to  the  scream  of  the  bagpipes  through  the  rocky  canyons  of  the 
river.  Close  to  the  boundary,  shift  was  made  from  canoe  to 
pack  horse,  and,  leaving  the  Columbia,  the  brigade  struck  up  the 
Okanogan  Valley  to  Kamloops,  bound  for  the  bridle  trail  up 

Fraser  River.  This  bri- 
gade, in  later  days,  was 
under  Douglas,  who  be- 
came the  knighted  gov- 
ernor of  British  Columbia. 
Tricked  out  in  gay  rib- 
bons, the  long  file  of  pack 
ponies,  two  hundred  with 
riders,  two  hundred  more 
with  packs,  moved  slowly 
along  the  forest  trail  with 
a  drone  as  of  bees  hum- 
ming in  midsummer.  So 
well  did  ponies  know  the 
way  that  riders  often  fell 
asleep,  to  be  suddenly 
jarred  awake  by  the 
horses  jamming  against 
a  tree,  or  running  under 
a  low  branch  to  brush 
riders  off,  or  hurdle-jump- 
ing over  windfall.  Each 
of  these  brigades  has  its 
own  story,  and  each  story  would  fill  a  book.  For  instance,  Glen 
Rae  at  San  Francisco  has  a  difficult  mission.  The  company  has 
a  plan  to  take  over  the  debts  of  Mexico  to  British  capitalists  and 
exchange  them  for  California.  Glen  Rae  is  sent  to  watch  matters, 
but  he  commits  the  blunder  of  furnishing  arms  to  the  losing  side 
of  a  revolution.  The  debt  for  the  arms  remains  unpaid.  Glen 
Rae  suicides,  and  the  company  withdraws  from  California. 


JOHN    McLOUGHLIN 


SECEDE  FROM  OREGON 


409 


Presently  come  American  settlers  and  missionaries  over  the 
mountains.  The  American  government  delays  settling  that 
treaty  of  joint  occupancy,  for  the  more  American  settlers  that 
come,  the  stronger  will  be  the  American  claim  to  the  territory. 
McLoughlin  helps  the  settlers  who  would  have  starved  without 
his  aid,  and  McLoughlin  receives  such  sharp  censure  from  his 
company  for  this  that  he  resigns.  When  the  American  settlers 
set  up  a  provisional  government,  the  foolish  cry  is  raised,  "  54,  40 
or  fight,"  which  means  the  Americans  claim  all  the  way  up  to 
Alaska,  and  for  this  there  is  no  warrant  either  through  their  own 
occupation  or  discovery.  The  boundary  is  compromised  by  the 
Treaty  of  Oregon  in  1846  at  the  49th  parallel. 

When  settlers  come,  fur-bearing  animals  leave.  Long  ago  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  had  foreseen  the  end  and  moved  the 
capital  of  its  Pacific  Empire  up  to  Victoria.  A  string  of  fur 
posts  extends  up  Fraser  River  to  New  Caledonia. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
FROM  1820  TO  1867 

It  will  be  recalled  that  on  the  coming  of  the  United  Empire 
Loyalists  to  Canada,  the  form  of  government  was  changed  by 
the  Constitutional  Act  of  1 791 ,  dividing  the  country  into  Upper 
and  Lower  Canada,  the  government  of  each  province  to  con- 
sist of  a  governor,  the  legislative  council,  and  the  assembly. 
Unfortunately,  self-government  for  the  colonies  was  not  yet  a 
recognized  principle  of  English  rule.  While  the  assemblies  of 
the  two  provinces  were  elected  by  the  people,  the  power  of  the 
assemblies  was  practically  a  blank,  for  the  governor  and  coun- 
cil were  the  real  rulers,  and  they  were  appointed  by  the  Crown, 
which  meant  Downing  Street,  which  meant  in  turn  that  the  two 
Canadas  were  regarded  as  the  happy  hunting  ground  for  incom- 
petent office  seekers  of  the  great  English  parties.  From  the 
governor  general  to  the  most  insignificant  postal  clerk,  all  were 
appointed  from  Downing  Street.  Influence,  not  merit,  counted, 
which  perhaps  explains  why  one  can  count  on  the  fingers  of 
one  hand  the  number  of  governors  and  lieutenants  from  1791 
to  1 84 1  who  were  worthy  of  their  trust  and  did  not  disgrace 
their  position  by  blunders  that  were  simply  notorious.  Prevost's 
disgraceful  retreat  from  Lake  Champlain  in  the  War  of  181 2  is 
a  typical  example  of  the  mischief  a  political  jobber  can  work 
when  placed  in  position  of  trust  ;  but  the  life-and-death  struggle 
of  the  war  prevented  the  people  turning  their  attention  to  ques- 
tions of  misgovernment,  and  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  the  Act  of  1 791  reduced  Canadian  affairs  to  the  chaos  of 
a  second  Ireland  and  retarded  the  progress  of  the  country  for 
a  century. 

It  has  become  customary  for  English  writers  to  slur  over  the 
disorders  of  1837  as  the  results  of  the  ignorant  rabble  following 

410 


HOW  THE  FAMILY  COMPACT  WORKED  411 

the  bad  advice  of  the  hot-heads,  MacKenzie  and  Papineau  ;  but 
it  is  worth  remembering  that  everything  the  rabble  fought  for, 
and  hanged  for,  has  since  been  incorporated  in  Canada's  con- 
stitution as  the  very  woof  and  warp  of  responsible  government. 

Let  us  see  how  the  system  worked  out  in  detail. 

After  the  War  of  18 12  Prevost  dies  before  court-martial  can 
pronounce  on  his  misconduct  at  Plattsburg,  and  Sir  Gorden 
Drummond,  the  hero  of  Fort  Erie's  siege,  is  sworn  in. 

Canada  is  governed  from  Downing  Street,  and  it  is  my  Lord 
Bathurst's  brilliant  idea  that  forever  after  the  war  there  shall  be  a 
belt  of  twenty  miles  left  waste  forest  and  prairie  between  Canada 
and  the  United  States,  presumably  to  prevent  democracy  roll- 
ing across  the  northern  boundary.  Fortunately  the  rough  horse 
sense  of  the  frontiersman  is  wiser  than  the  wisdom  of  the  British 
statesman,  and  settlement  continues  along  the  boundary  in  spite 
of  Bathurst's  brilliant  idea. 

Those  who  fought  in  the  War  of  18 12  are  to  be  rewarded  by 
grants  of  land,  —  rewarded,  of  course,  by  the  Crown,  which  means 
the  Governor  ;  but  the  Governor  must  listen  to  the  advice  of  his 
councilors,  who  are  appointed  for  life  ;  and  to  the  heroes  of 
18 1 2  the  councilors  grant  fifty  acres  apiece,  while  to  them- 
selves the  said  councilors  vote  grants  of  land  running  from 
twenty  thousand  to  eighty  thousand  acres  apiece. 

After  the  war  it  is  agreed  that  neither  Canada  nor  the  United 
States  shall  keep  war  vessels  on  the  lakes,  except  such  cruisers 
as  shall  be  necessary  to  maintain  order  among  the  fisheries  ; 
but  the  credit  for  this  wise  arrangement  does  not  belong  to  the 
councils  at  Toronto  or  Quebec,  for  the  suggestions  came  from 
Washington. 

As  the  legislative  councilors  are  appointed  for  life,  the)'  con- 
trol enormous  patronage,  recommending  all  appointments  to 
government  positions  and  meeting  any  applicants  for  office, 
who  are  outside  the  "family"  ring,  with  the  curt  refusal  that 
has  become  famous  for  its  insolence,  "  no  one  but  a  gentleman." 

Judges  are  appointed  by  favor.  So  are  local  magistrates.  So 
are  collectors  at  the  different  ports  of  entry.  Smaller  cities  like 


412  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

Kingston  are  year  after  year  refused  incorporation,  because  in- 
corporation would  confer  self-government,  and  that  would  oust 
members  of  the  "'family  compact"  who  held  positions  in  these 
places. 

Officeholders  are  responsible  to  the  Crown  only,  not  to  the 
people.  Therefore  when  Receiver  General  Caldwell  of  Quebec 
does  away  with  .£96,000,  or  two  years'  revenue  of  Lower  Canada, 
he  accounts  for  the  defalcation  to  his  friends  with  the  explana- 
tion of  unlucky  investments,  and  goes  scot  free. 

Quebec  is  a  French  province,  but  appointments  are  made 
in  England;  so  that  out  of  £71,000  paid  to  its  civil  serv- 
ants £58,000  go  to  the  English  officeholders,  £13,000  to 
French  ;  out  of  £36,000  paid  to  judges  only  £8,000  go  to  the 
French. 

And  in  Upper  Canada,  Ontario,  it  was  even  worse.  In  Que- 
bec there  was  always  the  division  of  French  against  English, 
and  Catholic  against  Protestant  ;  but  in  Upper  Canada  "  the 
family  compact"  of  councilors  against  commoners  was  a  solid 
and  unbroken  ring.  When  the  assembly  raises  objections  to 
some  items  of  expense  sent  down  by  the  council,  writes  Lieu- 
tenant Governor  Simcoe  in  high  dudgeon,  "  I  will  send  the  ras- 
cals," meaning  the  commoners,  "  packing  about  their  business," 
and  he  prorogues  the  House. 

Not  all  the  governors  and  their  lieutenants  are  as  foolishly 
blind  to  the  faults  of  the  system  as  Simcoe  of  Ontario.  Sir 
John  Sherbrooke  of  Quebec,  who  succeeds  Drummond  in  Lower 
Canada,  knows  very  well  he  is  surrounded  by  a  pack  of  thieves  ; 
but  they  are  his  councilors,  appointed  for  life,  and  there  he  is, 
bound  to  abide  by  their  advice.  Nevertheless,  he  kicks  over 
traces  vigorously  now  and  then,  like  the  old  war  horse  that  he 
is.  The  commissary  general  comes  to  him  with  word  that  £600 
is  missing  from  the  military  chest,  and  he  needs  a  warrant  for 
search. 

"  Search,  indeed  !  "  roars  Sir  John.  "  There  \s  not  the  slight- 
est need  !  Whenever  there  is  a  robbery  in  your  department,  it 
is  among  yourselves  !    Go  and  find  it  !  " 


THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 


413 


Curious  it  is  bow  good  men  reared  in  the  old  school,  where 
the  masses  exist  for  the  benefit  of  the  classes  and  the  governed 
are  to  be  allowed  to  exist  only  by  favor  of  those  who  govern  — 
curious  how  good  men  fail  to  read  the  sign  of  the  times.  Colonel 
Tom  Talbot's  settlement  in  West  Ontario  has,  by  1832,  increased 
to  50,000  people,  and  the  mad  harum-scarum  of  court  days  is 
becoming  an  old  man. 
Talbot  has  been  a  legis- 
lative councilor  for  life, 
but  it  is  not  on  record 
that  he  ever  attended  the 
council  in  Toronto.  Still 
he  views  with  high  dis- 
favor this  universal  dis- 
content with  "being 
governed."  The  secret 
meetings  held  to  agitate 
for  responsible  govern- 
ment, Tom  Talbot  re- 
gards as  "  a  pestilence  " 
leading  on  to  the  worst 
disease  from  wh  i  c  h 
humanity  can  suffer, 
namely,  democracy.  The 
old  bear  stirs  uneasily  in 
his  lair,  as  reports  come 
in  of  louder  and  louder 
demands  that  the  colony 
shall  be  permitted  to  govern  itself.  What  would  become  of 
kings  and  colonels  and  land  grants  by  special  favor,  if  colonies 
governed  themselves  ?  Colonel  Tom  Talbot  doffs  his  homespun 
and  his  coon  cap,  and  he  dons  the  satin  ruffles  of  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  and  he  mounts  his  steed  and  he  rides  pomp- 
ously forth  to  the  market  place  of  St.  Thomas  Town  on  St. 
George's  Day  of  1832.  Bands  play;  flags  wave;  the  country 
people  from  twenty  miles  round  come  riding  to  town.    Banners 


SIR   JOHN    SHERBROOKE,   GOVERNOR   GENERAL 
OF    CANADA,    1S16-1S1S 


414 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


inscribed  with  "  Loyalty  to  the  Constitution  "  are  carried  at  the 
head  of  parades.  The  venerable  old  colonel  is  greeted  with 
burst  after  burst  of  shouting  as  he  comes  prancing  on  horse- 
back up  the  hill.  The  band  plays  "  the  British  Grenadiers." 
The  Highland  bagpipes  skurl  a  welcome.  Then  the  old  man 
mounts  the  rostrum  and  delivers  a  speech  that  ought  to  be 
famous  as  an  exposition  of  good  old  Tory  doctrine  : 

Some  black  sheep  have  slipped  into  my  flock,  and  very  black  they  are, 
and  what  is  worse,  they  have  got  the  rot,  a  distemper  not  known  in  this 
settlement  till  some  I  shall  call  for  short  "  rebels  "  began  their  work  of  dark- 
ness under  cover  of  organizing  Blanked  Cold  Water  Drinking  Societies, 
where  they  meet  at  night  to  communicate  their  poisonous  schemes  and 
circulate  the  infection  and  delude  the  unwary  !  Then  they  assumed  a  more 
daring  aspect  under  mask  of  a  grievance  petition,  which,  when  it  was  placed 
before  me,  I  would  not  take  the  trouble  to  read,  being  aware  it  was  trash 
founded  on  falsehood,  fabricated  to  create  discontent. 

At  the  end  of  a  half  hour's  tirade,  of  which  these  lines  are  a 
sample,  the  good  old  Tory  raised  his  hands,  and  in  the  words  of 
the  Church's  benediction  blessed  his  people  and  prayed  Heaven 
to  keep  their  minds  untainted  by  sedition. 

Looking  back  less  than  a  century,  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  believe  that  the  colonel's  speech  —  it  cannot  be  called  rea- 
soning—  was  applauded  to  the  echo  and  regarded  as  a  masterly 
justification  of  people  "  being  governed  "  rather  than  governing 
themselves. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  not  so  much  the  Constitution  of 
Canada  that  caused  the  conflict  as  the  clash  between  the  old-time 
feudalism  and  the  spirit  of  modern,  aggressive  democracy.  The 
United  States/^//^///  this  question  out  in  i  yy6.  Canada  wrestled, 
it  cannot  be  called  a  fight,  the  same  question  out  in  1837. 

It  is  necessary  to  give  one  or  two  cases  of  individual  perse- 
cution to  understand  how  the  disorders  flamed  to  open  rebellion. 

One  Matthews,  an  officer  of  the  18 12  War,  living  on  a  pension, 
had  incurred  the  distrust  of  the  governing  ring  by  expressing 
sympathy  with  the  agitators.  Now  to  be  an  agitator  was  bad 
enough  in  the  eyes  of  "  the  family  compact"  but  for  one  of  their 


"LOYALTY  CRY"  415 

own  social  circle  to  sympathize  with  the  outsiders  was,  to  the 
snobocracy  clique  of  the  little  city  of  ten  thousand  at  Toronto, 
almost  an  unpardonable  sin.  Such  sins  were  punished  by  social 
ostracism,  by  the  grand  dames  of  Toronto  not  inviting  the  offi- 
cer's wife  to  social  functions,  by  the  families  of  the  upper  clique 
literally  freezing  the  sinner's  children  out  of  the  foremost  circles 
of  social  life.  Many  a  Canadian  family  is  proud  to  trace  lineage 
back  to  some  old  lady  of  this  tempestuous  period,  whose  only 
claim  to  recognition  is  that  she  waged  petty  persecution  against 
the  heroes  of  Canadian  progress.  Now  the  annals  of  the  times 
do  not  record  that  this  special  sinner's  wife  and  children  so  suf- 
fered. At  all  events  Matthews'  spirits  were  not  cast  down  by 
social  snobbery.  He  continued  to  sympathize  with  the  agitators. 
The  "family  compact"  bided  their  time,  and  their  time  came  a  few 
months  later,  when  a  company  of  American  actors  came  to 
Toronto.  A  band  concert  had  been  given.  When  the  British 
national  air  struck  up,  all  hats  were  off.  Then  some  one  called 
for  "  Yankee  Doodle,"  and  in  compliment  to  the  visitors,  when 
the  American  air  struck  up,  Matthews  shouted  out  for  "  hats 
off."  For  this  sin  the  legislative  council  ordered  the  lieutenant 
governor  to  cut  off  Matthews'  pension,  and,  to  the  everlasting 
shame  of  Sir  Peregrine  Maitland,  the  advice  was  taken,  though 
Matthews  had  twenty-seven  years  of  service  to  his  credit.  Mat- 
thews appealed  to  England,  and  his  pension  was  restored,  so  that 
in  this  case  "  the family  compact"  for  political  reasons  was  pretend- 
ing to  be  more  British  than  Great  Britain.  It  was  not  to  be  the 
last  occasion  on  which  "the  loyalty  cry"  was  to  be  used  as  a 
political  dodge. 

The  persecution  of  Robert  Gourlay  was  yet  more  outrageous. 
He  had  come  to  Canada  soon  after  the  War  of  1S12,  and  in  the 
course  of  collecting  statistics  for  a  book  on  the  colony  was  quick 
to  realize  how  Canada's  progress  was  being  literally  gagged  by 
the  policy  of  the  ruling  clique.  Gourlay  attacked  the  local 
magistrates  in  the  press.  lie  pointed  out  that  the  land  grants 
were  notorious.  He  advocated  bombarding  the  evils  from  two 
sides  at  once,  by  appealing  to  the  home  government  and  by 


41 6     CANADA:  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

holding  local  conventions  of  protest.  The  pass  to  which  things 
had  come  may  be  realized  by  the  attitude  of  the  council.  It  held 
that  the  colony  must  hold  no  communications  with  the  imperial 
government  except  through  the  Governor  General ;  in  other 
words,  individual  appeals  not  passing  through  the  hands  of  the 
legislative  council  were  to  be  regarded  as  illegal.  It  is  sad  to 
have  to  acknowledge  that  such  a  palpably  dishonest  measure 
was  ever  countenanced  by  people  in  their  right  minds.  But  "  the 
family  compact"  went  a  step  farther.  It  passed  an  order  for- 
bidding meetings  to  discuss  public  grievances.  This  part  of 
Canada's  story  reads  more  like  Russia  than  America,  and  shows 
to  what  length  men  will  go  when  special  privileges  rather  than 
equal  rights  prevail  in  a  country.  Gourlay  met  these  infamous 
measures  by  penning  some  witty  doggerel,  headed  "  Gagged, 
gagged,  by  Jingo!  "  The  editor  in  whose  paper  Gourlay's  writ- 
ings had  appeared,  was  arrested,  and  the  offending  sheet  was 
compelled  to  suspend.  Gourlay  himself  is  arrested  for  sedition 
and  libel  at  least  four  times,  but  each  time  the  jury  acquits  him. 
At  any  cost  the  governing  clique  must  get  rid  of  this  scribbling 
fellow,  whose  pen  voices  the  rising  discontent.  An  alien  act, 
passed  before  the  War  of  1812,  compelling  the  deportation  of 
seditious  persons,  is  revived.  Under  the  terms  of  the  act  Gour- 
lay is  arrested,  tried,  and  sentenced  to  be  exiled,  but  Gourlay 
declares  he  is  not  an  alien.  He  is  a  British  subject,  and  he  re- 
fuses to  leave  the  country.  He  is  thrown  in  jail  at  Niagara, 
and  for  a  year  and  a  half  left  in  a  moldy,  close  cell.  One  dis- 
likes to  write  that  this  outrage  on  British  justice  was  perpetrated 
under  Chief  Justice  Powell,  whose  failure  to  obtain  decisions 
from  the  jury  in  the  Red  River  trials  brought  clown  such  harsh 
criticism  on  the  bench.  At  the  end  of  twenty  months  Gourlay 
is  again  hauled  before  the  jury  and  sentenced  to  deportation  on 
pain  of  death  if  he  refuses.  He  was  calmly  asked  if  he  had  any- 
thing to  say,  h  there  were  any  reason  why  sentence  should  not 
be  pronounced. 

"Anything  .  .  .  to  .  .  .  say?     Any    reason  .  .  .  why   .  .  .   sen- 
tence .  .  .  should   not    be  pronounced?"     From    18 18    to   1820 


GOURLAY  DRIVEN  MAD  417 

Gourlay  had  been  having  things  "  to  say,"  had  been  giving  good 
and  sufficient  reasons  why  sentence  should  not  be  pronounced  ! 
The  question  is  repeated  :  "  Robert  Gourlay  stand  up  !  Have  you 
anything  to  say  ?  "  The  court  waits,  Chief  Justice  Powell,  be- 
wigged  and  wearing  his  grandest  manner,  all  unconscious  that 
the  scene  is  to  go  down  to  history  with  blot  of  ignominy  against 
his  name,  not  Gourlay 's. 

Gourlay's  face  twitches,  and  he  breaks  into  shrieks  of  maniacal 
laughter.  The  petty  persecutions  of  a  provincial  tyranny  have 
driven  a  man,  who  is  true  patriot,  out  of  his  mind.  As  Gourlay 
drops  out  of  Canada's  story  here,  it  may  be  added  that  the  Eng- 
lish government  later  pronounced  the  whole  trial  an  outrage, 
and  Gourlay  was  invited  back  to  Canada. 

If  at  this  stage  a  man  had  come  to  Canada  as  governor,  big 
enough  and  just  enough  to  realize  that  colonies  had  some  rights, 
there  might  have  been  remedy  ;  for  the  imperial  government, 
eager  to  right  the  wrong,  was  misled  by  the  legislative  coun- 
cilors, and  all  at  sea  as  to  the  source  of  the  trouble.  While  men 
were  being  actually  driven  out  of  Canada  by  the  governing  ring 
on  the  charge  of  disloyalty,  the  colonial  minister  of  England  was 
sending  secret  dispatches  to  the  Governor  General,  instructing 
him  plainly  that  if  independence  was  what  Canada  wanted,  then 
the  mother  country,  rather  than  risk  a  second  war  with  the 
United  States,  or  press  conclusions  with  the  Canadas  themselves, 
would  willingly  cede  independence.  It  is  as  well  to  be  emphatic 
and  clear  on  this  point.  //  was  not  the  tyranny  of  England  that 
caused  the  troubles  0/1837.  It  was  the  dishonesty  of  the  ruling- 
rings  at  Quebec  and  Toronto,  and  this  dishonesty  was  possible 
because  of  the  Constitutional  Act  of  1 79 1. 

Unfortunately,  just  when  imperial  statesmen  of  the  modern 
school  were  needed,  governors  of  the  old  school  were  appointed 
to  Canada.  After  Sir  John  Sherbrooke  came  the  Duke  of 
Richmond  to  Quebec,  and  his  son-in-law,  Sir  Peregrine  Maitland, 
as  lieutenant  governor  to  Ontario.  Men  of  more  courtly  man- 
ners never  graced  the  vice-re<ral  chairs  of  Quebec  and  Toronto. 


4lS  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 

Richmond,  who  was  some  fifty  years  of  age,  had  won  notoriety 
in  his  early  days  by  a  duel  with  a  prince  of  the  blood  royal, 
honor  on  both  sides  being  satisfied  by  Richmond  shooting  away 
a  curl  from  the  royal  brow  ;  but  presto,  an  Irish  barrister  takes 
up  the  quarrel  by  challenging  Richmond  to  a  second  duel  for 
having  dared  to  fight  a  prince  ;  and  here  Richmond  satisfies 
claims  of  honor  by  a  well-directed  ball  aimed  to  wound,  not  kill. 
Long  years  after,  when  the  duke  became  viceroy  of  Ireland, 
the  Irishman  appeared  at  one  of  Richmond's  state  balls. 

"Hah,"  laughed  the  barrister,  "the  last  time  we  met,  your 
Grace  gave  me  a  ball." 

"  Best  give  you  a  brace  of  'em  now,"  retorted  the  witty 
Richmond ;  and  he  sent  his  quondam  foe  invitation  to  two 
more  balls. 

Richmond  it  was  who  gave  the  famous  ball  before  the  defeat 
of  Napoleon  at  Waterloo.  The  story  of  his  daughter's  love 
match  with  Sir  Peregrine  Maitland  is  of  a  piece  with  the  rest 
of  the  romance  in  Richmond's  life.  Richmond  and  Maitland 
had  been  friends  in  the  army,  but  when  the  duke  began  to  ob- 
serve that  his  daughter,  Lady  Sarah,  and  the  younger  man 
were  falling  in  love,  he  thought  to  discourage  the  union  with 
a  poor  man  by  omitting  Maitland's  name  from  invitation  lists. 
When  Lady  Sarah  came  downstairs  to  a  ball  she  surmised  that 
Maitland  had  not  been  invited,  and,  withdrawing  from  the  assem- 
bled guests,  drove  to  her  lover's  apartments.  She  married 
Maitland  without  her  father's  consent,  but  a  reconciliation  had 
been  patched  up.  Father  and  son-in-law  now  came  to  Canada 
as  governor  and  lieutenant  governor. 

The  military  and  social  life  of  both  unfitted  them  to  appre- 
ciate the  conditions  in  Canada.  Socially  both  were  the  lions 
of  the  hour.  As  a  man  and  gentleman  Richmond  was  simply 
adored,  and  Quebec's  love  of  all  the  pomp  of  monarchy  was 
glutted  to  the  full.  No  more  distinguished  governor  ever  played 
host  in  the  old  Chateau  St.  Louis  ;  but  as  rulers,  as  pacifiers, 
as  guides  of  the  ship  of  state,  Richmond  and  Maitland  were 
dismal    failures.      To    them    Canada's    demand    for  responsible 


RICHMOND'S  TRAGIC   DEATH 


419 


government  seemed  the  rallying  cry  of  an  impending  republic. 
"We  must  overcome  democracy  or  it  will  overcome  us,"  pro- 
nounced Richmond.  He  failed  to  see  that  resistance  to  the 
demand  for  self-government  would  bring  about  the  same  results 
in  Canada  as  resistance  had  brought  about  in  the  United  States, 
and  he  could  not  guess  —  for  the  thing  was  new  in  the  world's 
history  —  that  the  grant 
of  self-government  would 
but  bind  the  colony  the 
closer  to  the  mother 
land. 

It  is  sad  to  write  of  two 
such  high-minded,  well- 
intentioned  rulers,  that 
the  worst  acts  of  misgov- 
ernment  in  Canada  took 
place  in  their  regime. 

Richmond's  death  was 
as  unusual  as  his  life. 
Two  accounts  are  given 
of  the  cause.  One  states 
that  he  permitted  a  pet 
dog  to  touch  a  cut  in  his 
face.  The  other  account 
has  it  that  he  was  bitten 
by  a  tame  fox  at  a  fair 
in  Sorel,  and  the  date  of 


THE  FOURTH  DUKE   OF  RICHMOND,  GOVERNOR 
GENERAL    OF    CANADA,   181S-1819 


Richmond's  death,  late  in  August  of  18 19,  exactly  two  months 
from  the  time  he  was  bitten  at  Sorel,  —  which  is  the  length  of 
time  that  hydrophobia  takes  to  develop  in  a  grown  person, — 
would  seem  to  substantiate  the  latter  story.  He  was  traveling 
on  horseback  from  Perth  to  Richmond,  on  the  Ottawa,  and  had 
complained  of  feeling  poorly.  A  small  stream  had  to  he  crossed. 
The  sight  of  the  stream  brought  the  strange  water  delirium  to 
Richmond,  when  he  begged  his  attendants  to  take  him  quickly 
to  Montreal.   It  need  scarce!)'  he  explained  here  that  hydrophobia 


420 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


is  not  caused  by  lack  of  water,  but  by  contagious  transmission. 
The  feeling  passed,  as  the  first  terrors  of  the  disease  are  usually 
spasmodic,  and  the  Governor  was  proceeding  through  the  woods 
with  his  attendants,  when  he  suddenly  broke  away  deliriously, 
leading  them  a  wild  race  to  a  farm  shed.  There  he  died  during 
the  night,  crying  out  as  the  lucid  intervals  broke  the  delirium 
of  his  agonies:  "For  shame!  for  shame  Lenox!  Richmond, 
be  a  man  !   Can  you  not  bear  it  ?  " 

Public  affairs  are  meanwhile  passing  from  bad  to  worse. 
William  Lyon  MacKenzie  has  become  leader  of  the  agitators 
in  his  newspaper,  The  Advocate,  of  Toronto.  A  band  of  young 
vandals,  sons  of  the  ruling  clique,  wreck  his  newspaper  office 
and  throw  the  type  into  Toronto  Bay,  but  MacKenzie  recovers 
$3000  damages  and  goes  on  agitating.  Four  times  he  is  pub- 
licly expelled  from  the  House,  and  four  times  he  is  returned  by 
the  electors.  What  are  they  asking,  these  agitators,  branded  as 
rebels,  expelled  from  the  assembly,  in  some  cases  cast  in  prison 
by  the  councilors,  in  others  threatened  with  death  ? 

Control  of  public  revenues. 

Reform  in  the  land  system. 

Municipal  rights  for  towns  and  cities. 

The  exclusion  of  judges  from  Parliament. 

That  the  council  be  directly  responsible  to  the  people 
rather  than  the  Crown. 

Since  18 18  the  reformers  have  been  agitating  to  have  wrongs 
righted,  and  for  nineteen  years  the  clique  has  prevented  official 
inquiry,  gagged  the  press,  bludgeoned  conventions  out  of  exist- 
ence, and  thrown  leaders  of  opposition  in  prison. 

MacKenzie  now  makes  the  mistake  of  publishing  in  his  papers 
a  letter  from  the  English  radical  Hume,  advocating  the  freedom 
of  Canada  "  from  the  baneful  domination  of  the  mother  country." 
At  once,  with  a  jingo  whoop,  the  loyalty  cry  is  emitted  by  "  the 
family  compact."  Is  not  this  what  they  have  been  telling  the 
Governor  from  the  first,  —  these  reformers  are  republicans  in 


PATRIOTS  OF  THE  PLOW 


421 


disguise  ?  By  trickery  and  manipulation  they  swing  the  next 
election  so  that  MacKenzie  is  defeated.  From  that  moment 
MacKenzie's  tone  changed.  It  may  be  that,  losing  all  hope  of 
reform,  he  became  a  republican.  If  this  were  treason,  then  the 
English  ministers,  who  were  advocating  the  same  remedy,  were 
guilty  of  the  same  treason.  With  MacKenzie,  secretly  and 
openly,  are  a  host  of  sympathizers, — Dr.  Rolph,  Tom  Talbot's 
old  friend,  come  up  from 
the  London  district  to 
practice  medicine  in  To- 
ronto, and  Van  Egmond, 
who  has  helped  to  set- 
tle the  Huron  Tract  of 
the  Canada  Company, 
founded  by  John  Gait, 
the  novelist,  and  some 
four  thousand  others 
whose  names  MacKenzie 
has  on  a  list  in  his  car- 
pet bag. 

All  the  autumn  of  1837 
Fitzgibbons,  now  com- 
mander of  the  troops  in 
Toronto,  hears  vague  ru- 
mors of  farmers  secretly 
drilling,  of  workmen  ex- 
temporizing swords  out 
of  scythes,  of  old  soldiers  furbishing  up  their  arms  of  the  1812 
War.  What  does  it  mean  ?  Sir  Francis  Bond  Head,  the  new  gov- 
ernor of  Ontario,  refuses  to  believe  his  own  ears.  Neither  does 
the  family  compact  realize  that  there  is  any  danger  to  their 
long  tenure  of  power.  They  affect  to  sneer  at  these  poor  patriots 
of  the  plow,  little  dreaming  that  the  rights  which  these  poor 
patriots  of  the  scythe  swords  are  burning  to  defend,  will,  by  and 
by,  be  the  pride  of  England's  colonial  system.  The  story  of 
plot  and  counter  plot  cannot  be  told  in  detail  here  ;   it   is   too 


WILLIAM    LYON    MACKENZIE 


422 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OE  THE   NORTH 


long.  But  on  the  night  of  Monday,  December  4,  Toronto  wakes 
up  to  a  wild  ringing  of  college  bells.  The  rebel  patriots  have 
collected  at  Montgomery's  Tavern  outside  Toronto,  and  are 
advancing  on  the  city. 

Poor  MacKenzie's  plans  have  gone  all  awry.  Four  thousand 
patriots  had  pledged  themselves  to  assemble  at  the  tavern  on 
December  7,  but  Dr.  Rolph,  or  some  other  friend  in  the  city, 
sends  word  that  the  date  has  been  discovered.  The  only  hope 
of  seizing  the  city  is  for  them  to  come  sooner  ;  and  MacKenzie 
arrives  at  the  tavern  on  December  3,  with  only  a  few  hundred 
followers,  who  have  neither  food  nor  firearms;  and  I  doubt  much 
if  they  had  even  definite  plans  ;  of  such  there  are  no  records. 
Before  Van  Egmond  comes  from  Seaforth,  doubt  and  dissen- 
sion and  distrust  of  success  depress  the  insurgents ;  and  it 
does  n't  help  their  spirits  any  to  have  four  Toronto  scouts 
break  through  their  lines  in  the  dark  and  back  again  with  word 
of  their  weakness,  though  they  plant  a  fatal  bullet  neatly  in  the 
back  of  one  poor  loyalist.  If  they  had  advanced  promptly  on 
the  4th,  as  planned,  they  might  have  given  Sir  Francis  Bond 
Head  and  Fitzgibbons  a  stiff  tussle  for  possession  of  the  city, 
for  Toronto's  defenders  at  this  time  numbered  scarcely  three 
hundred  ;  but  during  the  days  MacKenzie's  followers  delayed 
north  of  Yonge  Street,  Allan  McNab  came  up  from  Hamilton 
with  more  troops.  By  Wednesday,  the  6th,  there  were  twelve 
hundred  loyalist  troops  in  Toronto ;  and  noon  of  the  7th,  out 
marches  the  loyalist  army  by  way  of  Yonge  Street,  bands  play- 
ing, flags  flying,  horses  prancing  under  Fitzgibbons  and  McNab. 
It  was  a  warm,  sunny  day.  From  the  windows  of  Yonge  Street 
women  waved  handkerchiefs  and  cheered.  At  street  corners 
the  rabble  shouted  itself  hoarse,  just  as  it  would  have  cheered 
MacKenzie  had  he  come  down  Yonge  Street  victorious. 

MacKenzie's  sentries  had  warned  the  insurgents  of  the  loyal- 
ists' coming.  MacKenzie  was  for  immediate  advance.  Van  Eg- 
mond thought  it  stark  madness  for  five  hundred  poorly  armed 
men  to  meet  twelve  hundred  troopers  in  pitched  battle  ;  but  it 
was   too  late  now  for  stark    madness   to   retreat.     The  loyalist 


DEFEAT  OF  PATRIOTS 


423 


bands  could  be  heard  from  Rosedale  ;  the  loyalists'  bayonets 
could  be  seen  glittering  in  the  sun.  MacKenzie  posted  his  men 
a  short  distance  south  of  the  tavern  in  some  woods  ;  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  on  one  side  of  the  road  west  of  Yonge  Street, 
one  hundred  on  the  other  side.  The  rest  of  the  insurgents, 
being  without  arms,  did  not  leave  the  rendezvous.  In  the  con- 
fusion and  haste  the  tragic 
mistake  was  made  of  leav- 
ing MacKenzie's  carpet 
bag  with  the  list  of  pa- 
triots at  the  tavern.  This 
gave  the  loyalists  a  com- 
plete roster  of  the  agita- 
tors' names. 

Fifteen  minutes  later 
it  wras  all  over  with  Mac- 
Kenzie. The  big  guns  of 
the  Toronto  troops  shelled 
the  woods,  killing  one  pa- 
triot rebel  and  wounding 
eleven,  four  fatally.  In 
answer,  only  a  clattering 
spatter  of  shots  came 
from  the  rebel  side.  The 
patriots  were  in  headlong 
flight  with  the  mounted 
men  of  Toronto  in  pursuit. 

It  was  over  with  MacKenzie,  but,  as  the  sequence  of  events 
will  show,  it  was  not  all  over  with  the  cause.  A  book  of  soldiers' 
yarns  might  be  told  of  hairbreadth  escapes,  the  aftermath  of 
the  rebellion.  Knowing  his  side  was  doomed  to  defeat,  Dr. 
Rolph.  tried  to  escape  from  Toronto.  He  was  stopped  by  a 
loyalist  sentry,  but  explained  he  was  leaving  the  city  to  visit 
a  patient.  Farther  on  he  had  been  arrested  bv  a  loyalist  picket, 
when  luckily  a  young  doctor  who  had  attended  Rolph's  medical 
lectures,  all  unconscious  of  MacKenzie's  plot,  vouched  for  his 


ALLAN    McNAB 


424  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

loyalty.  Riding  like  a  madman  all  that  night,  Rolph  reached 
Niagara  and  escaped  to  the  American  frontier.  A  reward  of 
;£iooo  had  been  offered  for  MacKenzie  dead  or  alive.  He  had 
waited  only  till  his  followers  fled,  when  he  mounted  his  big  bay 
horse  and  galloped  for  the  woods,  pursued  by  Fitzgibbons'  men. 
The  big  bay  carried  him  safely  to  the  country,  where  he  wan- 
dered openly  for  four  days.  It  speaks  volumes  for  the  stanch 
fidelity  of  the  country  people  to  the  cause  which  MacKenzie  rep- 
resented, that  during  these  wanderings  he  was  unbetrayed,  spite 
of  the  .£1000  reward.  Finally  he  too  succeeded  in  crossing 
Niagara.  Van  Egmond  was  captured  north  of  Yonge  Street, 
but  died  from  disease  contracted  in  his  prison  cell  before  he 
could  be  tried.  Lount,  another  of  the  leaders,  had  succeeded 
in  reaching  Long  Point,  Lake  Erie.  With  a  fellow  patriot,  a 
French  voyageur,  and  a  boy,  he  started  to  cross  Lake  Erie  in 
an  open  boat.  It  was  wintry,  stormy  weather.  For  two  clays 
and  two  nights  the  boat  tossed,  a  plaything  of  the  waves,  the 
drenching  spray  freezing  as  it  fell,  till  the  craft  was  almost  ice- 
logged.  For  food  they  had  brought  only  a  small  piece  of  meat, 
and  this  had  frozen  so  hard  that  their  numbed  hands  could  not 
break  it.  Weakening  at  each  oar  stroke,  they  at  last  saw  the 
south  shore  of  Lake  Erie  rise  on  the  sky  line  ;  but  before  the 
close-muffled  refugees  had  dared  to  hope  for  safety  on  the  Amer- 
ican side,  a  strong  south  wind  had  sprung  up  that  drove  the  boat 
back  across  the  lake  towards  Grand  River.  To  remain  exposed 
longer  meant  certain  death.  They  landed,  were  mistaken  for 
smugglers,  and  thrown  into  jail,  where  Lount  was  at  once 
recognized. 

In  West  Ontario  one  Dr.  Duncombe  had  acted  as  MacKenzie's 
lieutenant.  Allan  McNab  had  come  west  with  six  hundred  men 
to  suppress  the  rebellion.  Realizing  the  hopelessness  of  further 
resistance,  Duncombe  had  tried  to  save  his  men  by  ordering 
them  to  disperse  to  their  homes.  He  himself,  with  his  white 
horse,  took  to  the  woods,  where  he  lay  in  hiding  all  day  — and 
it  was  a  Canadian  December  —  and  foraged  at  night  for  ber- 
ries and   roots.    Judge   Ermatinger  gives  the  graphic  story  of 


DUNCOMBE'S  ESCAPE  425 

Duncombe's  escape.  Starvation  drove  him  to  the  house  of  a 
friend.  The  friend  was  out,  and  when  the  wife  asked  who  he 
was,  Duncombe  laid  his  revolver  on  the  table  and  made  answer, 
"  I  am  Duncombe  ;  and  I  must  have  food."  Here  he  lay  dis- 
guised so  completely  with  nightcap,  nightdress,  and  all,  as  the 
visiting  grandmother  of  the  family,  that  loyalists  who  saw  his 
white  horse  and  came  in  to  search  the  house,  looked  squarely 
at  the  recumbent  figure  beneath  the  bedclothes  and  did  not 
recognize  him.  Duncombe  at  last  reached  his  sister's  home  near 
London. 

"  Don't  you  know  me  ?  "  he  asked,  standing  in  the  open  door, 
waiting  for  her  recognition.  In  the  few  weeks  of  exposure  and 
pursuit  his  hair  had  turned  snow-white. 

His  friends  suggested  that  he  cross  to  the  American  frontier 
dressed  as  a  woman,  and  the  disguise  was  so  perfect,  curls  of 
his  sister's  hair  bobbing  from  beneath  his  bonnet,  that  two  loy- 
alist soldiers  gallantly  escorted  the  lady's  sleigh  across  unsafe 
places  in  the  ice.  Duncombe  waited  till  he  was  well  on  the 
American  side,  and  his  escorts  on  the  way  back  to  Sarnia.  Then 
he  emitted  a  yell  over  the  back  of  the  cutter,  "  Go  tell  your 
officers  you  have  just  helped  Dr.  Duncombe  across  !  " 

Having  lost  the  fight  for  a  cause  which  events  have  since 
justified,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  patriots  on  the  American 
frontier  now  lost  their  heads.  They  formed  organizations  from 
Detroit  to  Vermont  for  the  invasion  of  Canada  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  republic.  These  bands  were  known  as  "  Hunter's 
Lodges."  Rolph  and  Duncombe  repudiated  connection  with 
them,  but  MacKenzie  was  head  and  heart  for  armed  invasion 
from  Buffalo.  Space  forbids  the  story  of  these  raids.  They 
would  fill  a  book  with  such  thrilling  tales  as  make  up  the  border 
wars  of  Scotland. 

The  tumultuous  year  of  1837  closed  with  the  burning  of  the 
Caroline.  MacKenzie  had  taken  up  quarters  on  Navy  Island  in 
Niagara  River.  The  Caroline,  an  American  ship,  was  being  em- 
ployed to  convey  guns  and  provisions  to  the  insurgents'  camp. 
On  the  Canadian  side  of  the  river  camped  Allan  McNab  with 


426  CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 

twenty-five  hundred  loyalist  troops.  Looking  across  the  river 
with  field  glasses,  McNab  sees  the  boat  landing  field  guns  on 
Navy  Island  for  MacKenzie. 

"  I  say,"  exclaims  the  future  Sir  Allan,  "  this  won't  do  !  Can't 
you  cut  that  vessel  out,  Drew  ?  "  addressing  a  young  officer. 

"  Nothing  easier,"  answers  Drew. 

"Do  it,  then,"  orders  McNab. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  "  nothing  was  easier,"  Drew's  men  came 
near  disaster  on  their  midnight  escapade.  The  river  below  Navy 
Island  was  three  miles  wide,  and  only  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the 
rapids  above  the  Falls,  with  a  current  like  a  mill  race.  Secretly 
seven  boats,  with  four  men  in  each,  set  out  at  half  past  eleven, 
a  few  friends  on  the  river  bank  wishing  Drew  Godspeed.  Out 
from  shore  Drew  draws  his  boats  together,  and  tells  the  men 
the  perilous  task  they  have  to  do  :  if  any  one  wishes  to  go  back 
let  him  do  so  now.  Not  a  man  speaks.  Halfway  across,  firing 
from  the  island  drives  two  of  the  boats  back.  The  rest  get 
under  shadow  from  the  bright  moonlight  and  go  on.  The  roar 
of  the  Falls  now  became  deafening,  and  some  of  the  rowers 
called  out  they  were  being  drawn  down  the  center  of  the  river 
astern.  Drew  fastens  his  eyes  on  a  light  against  the  American 
shore  to  judge  of  their  progress.  For  a  moment,  though  the  men 
were  rowing  with  all  their  might,  the  light  ashore  and  the 
boats  in  mid-river  seemed  to  remain  absolutely  still.  Finally  the 
boats  gained  an  oar's  length.  Then  a  mighty  pull,  and  all  forge 
ahead.  A  strip  of  land  hides  approach  to  the  Caroline.  The 
Canadian  boatmen  lie  in  hiding  till  the  moon  goes  down,  then 
glide  in  on  the  Caroline,  when  Drew  mounts  the  decks.  Three 
unarmed  men  are  found  on  the  shore  side.  Drew  orders  them 
to  land.  One  fires  point-blank  ;  Drew  slashes  him  down  with 
a  single  saber  cut.  The  rest  of  the  crew  are  roused  from  sleep 
and  sent  ashore.  The  Caroline  is  set  on  fire  in  four  places.  She 
is  moored  to  the  shore  ice;  axes  chop  her  free.  She  is  adrift; 
Drew  the  last  to  jump  from  her  flaming  decks  to  his  place  in 
the  small  boats.  The  flames  arc  seen  from  the  Canadian  side, 
and  huge  bonfires  light  up  the  Canadian  shore  ;   by  their  gleam 


EXECUTION  OF  PATRIOTS  427 

Drew  steers  back  for  McNab's  army,  and  is  welcomed  with 
cheers  that  split  the  welkin.  Slowly  the  naming  vessel  drifted 
down  the  channel  to  the  Falls.  Suddenly  the  lights  went  out ; 
the  Caroline  had  either  sunk  on  a  reef  or  gone  over  the  Falls. 
One  man  had  been  killed  on  the  decks.  As  the  vessel  was 
American,  and  had  been  raided  in  American  ports,  the. episode 
raised  an  international  dispute  that  might  in  another  mood  have 
caused  war. 

Lount  and  Matthews  pay  for  the  rebellion  on  the  gallows, 
upon  which  the  imperial  government  expressed  regret  that  the 
Toronto  Executive  "found  such  severity  necessary."  Later, 
when  "  the  Hunters'  Lodges  "  raid  Prescott,  and  Van  Shoultz, 
the  Polish  leader,  with  nine  others,  is  executed  at  Kingston,  a 
great  revulsion  of  feeling  takes  place  against  the  family  compact. 
The  execution  of  the  patriots  did  more  for  their  cause  than  all 
their  efforts  of  twenty  years.  The  Canadian  people  had  sup- 
ported the  agitators  up  to  the  point  of  armed  rebellion.  That 
gave  British  blood  pause,  for  the  Britisher  reveres  the  law  next 
to  God  ;  but  when  the  governing  ring  began  to  glut  its  vengeance 
under  cloak  of  loyalty  that  was  another  matter.  After  the  exe- 
cution of  Lount  and  Matthews  the  family  compact  could  scarcely 
count  a  friend  outside  its  own  circle  in  Upper  Canada.  It  is  worth 
remembering  that  the  young  lawyer  who  defended  Van  Shoultz 
in  the  trial  at  Kingston  was  a  John  A.  Macdonald,  who  later  took 
foremost  part  in  framing  a  new  constitution  for  Canada. 

Affairs  had  gone  faster  in  Quebec.  There  the  rebellion  almost 
became  war.  Papineau  was  leader  of  the  agitators,  —  Papineau, 
fiery,  impetuous,  eloquent,  followed  by  the  bold  boys  in  the 
bonnets  blue,  marching  the  streets  of  Montreal  singing  revolu- 
tionary songs  and  planting  liberty  trees.  In  Lower  Canada,  too, 
things  have  come  to  the  pass  where  the  agitators  advocate  armed 
resistance.  From  the  first,  in  Quebec,  the  struggle  has  waged 
round  two  questions,  —  the  exclusion  of  the  French  from  the 
council,  and  the  right  of  the  colony  to  spend  its  own  revenues  ;  but 
boil  clown  the  ninety-two  resolutions  of   1834,  and  the  demands 


428 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


of  the  agitators  in  Lower  Canada  are  the  same  as  in  Upper 
Canada,  for  complete  self-government.  A  dozen  clashes  of 
authority  lead  up  to  the  final  outbreak.  For  instance,  the  House 
elects  Papineau,  the  agitator,  speaker.  The  Governor  General 
refuses  to  recognize  him,  and  Parliament  is  dissolved. 

Failing  to  obtain  redress  by  constitutional  methods,  the  agita- 
tors now  advocate  the  right  of  a  colony  to  abolish  government 
unsuited  to  it.    The  constitutional  party  takes  alarm  and  organizes 

volunteers.  Papineau' s  party, 
early  in  1837,  begin  violently 
advocating  that  all  French 
magistrates  resign  their  com- 
missions from  the  English  gov- 
ernment. On  Richelieu  River 
and  up  in  Two  Mountains, 
north  of  Montreal,  are  the 
strongholds  of  the  agitators, 
where  men  have  been  drilling, 
and  the  boys  in  the  bonnets 
blue  rioting  through  the  vil- 
lages to  the  great  scandal  of 
parish  priests. 

There  are  riots  in  Montreal 
early  in  November  of  1837,  and 
"the  Sons  of  Liberty"  are 
chased  through  the  town.  Then  in  the  third  week  of  November 
a  troop  of  Montreal  cavalry  is  sent  to  St.  John's  to  arrest  three 
agitators,  who  have  been  threatening  a  magistrate  for  refusing 
to  resign  his  commission.  The  agitators  are  arrested  and  hand- 
cuffed, and  at  three  in  the  morning  the  troops  are  moving  along 
across  country  towards  Longueuil  with  the  prisoners  in  a  wagon, 
when  suddenly  three  hundred  armed  men  rise  on  either  side  of 
the  road  to  the  fore.  Shots  are  exchanged.  In  the  confusion  the 
prisoners  jump  from  the  wagon.  This  is  not  resistance  to  authority. 
It  is  open  rebellion.  Papineau  intrusts  the  management  of  affairs 
in    St.  Eustache,  north   of  Montreal,  to  Girod,  a  Swiss,  and  to 


* '  ^IfHHIn 

1*9    - 

*— s 

WEr^P^(> 

LOUIS    J.    PAPINEAU 


BLOODSHED   IN  QUEBEC  429 

Dr.  Chenier,  a  local  patriot.  Papineau  himself  and  Dr.  Nelson 
and   O'Callaghan  are  down  on  the  Richelieu  at  St.  Denis. 

Take  the  Richelieu  region  first.  Colonel  Gore  is  to  strike  up 
the  river  southward  to  St.  Denis.  Colonel  Wetherell  is  to  cross 
country  from  Montreal  and  strike  clown  the  river  north  to  St. 
Charles,  thus  hemming  in  the  insurgents  between  Gore  on  the 
north  and  himself  on  the  south.  There  are  eight  hundred  rebels 
at  St.  Denis,  one  hundred  and  fifty  armed,  and  twelve  hundred 
at  St.  Charles.  Papineau  and  O'Callaghan  for  safety's  sake  slip 
across  the  line  to  Swanton  in  Vermont.  One  could  wish  that, 
having  led  their  faithful  followers  up  to  the  sticking  point  of 
stark  madness,  the  agitators  had  remained  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  the  brave  fellows  on  the  field. 

Colonel  Gore  came  from  Montreal  by  boat  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Richelieu.  At  seven-thirty  on  the  night  of  November  22 
two  hundred  and  fifty  troopers  landed  to  march  up  the  Richelieu 
road  to  St.  Denis.  Rain  turning  to  sleet  was  falling  in  a  deluge. 
The  roads  were  swimming  knee-deep  in  slush.  Bridges  had  been 
cut,  and  in  the  darkness  the  loyalists  had  to  diverge  to  fording 
places,  which  lengthened  out  the  march  twenty-four  miles.  At 
St.  Denis  was  Dr.  Nelson  with  the  agitators  in  a  three-story 
stone  house,  windows  bristling  with  muskets.  By  dawn  Papineau 
and  O'Callaghan  had  fled,  and  at  nine  o'clock  came  Colonel 
Gore's  loyalist  troopers,  exhausted  from  the  march,  soaked  to 
the  skin,  their  water-sagged  clothes  freezing  in  the  cold  wind. 
The  loyalists  went  into  the  fight  unfed,  and  with  a  whoop  ;  but 
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  peppering  of  bullets  from  the  win- 
dows drove  the  troopers  back,  and  Gore's  bugles  sounded  re- 
treat. Unaware  of  Gore's  defeat,  one  Lieutenant  Weir  has  been 
sent  across  country  with  dispatches.  He  is  captured  and  bound, 
and,  in  a  futile  attempt  to  escape,  shot  and  stabbed  to  death. 

Wetherell  comes  down  the  river  from  Chambly  with  three 
hundred  men.  lie  finds  St.  Charles  village  protected  by  out- 
works of  felled  trees,  and  the  houses  are  literally  loopholed 
with  muskets  ;  but  Wetherell  has  brought  cannon  along,  and 
the  cannon  begin  to  sing  on  November  25.    Then  Wetherell's 


43° 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


men  charge  through  the  village  with  leveled  bayonets.  The 
poor  habitants  scatter  like  frightened  sheep  ;  they  surrender  ; 
one  hundred  perish.  It  is  estimated  that  on  both  sides  three 
hundred  are  wounded,  though  some  English  writers  give  the 
list  of  wounded  as  low  as  forty.    Messengers  galloped  with  news 

of  the  patriots'  defeat  at 
St.  Charles  to  Dr.  Nelson 
at  St.  Denis.  The  habit- 
ants fled  to  their  homes. 
Nelson  was  left  without 
a  follower.  He  escaped 
to  the  woods,  and  for  two 
weeks  wandered  in  the 
forests  of  the  boundary, 
exposed  to  cold  and  hun- 
ger, not  daring  to  kindle 
a  fire  that  would  betray 
him,  afraid  to  let  himself 
sleep  for  fear  of  freez- 
ing to  death.  He  was 
captured  near  the  Ver- 
mont line  and  carried 
prisoner  to   Montreal. 

And  still  worse  fared 
the  fortunes  of  war  with 
the  patriots  north  of 
Montreal.  Their  defense 
and  defeat  were  almost 
pitiable  in  childish  ignorance  of  what  war  might  mean.  Boys' 
marbles  had  been  gathered  together  for  bullets.  Scythes  were 
carried  as  swords,  and  old  flintlocks  that  had  not  seen  service  for 
twenty  years  were  taken  down  from  the  chimney  places.  With 
their  bonnets  blue  hanging  down  their  backs,  rusty  firearms 
over  their  shoulders,  and  the  village  tiddler  leading  the  march, 
one  thousand  "Sons  of  Liberty"  had  paraded  the  streets  of 
St.  Eustache,   singing,   rollicking,   speechifying,  unconscious  as 


SIR   JOHN    COLBORNE,    GOVERNOR    OF 
CANADA,   1S3S-1S41 


CHENIER'S  TRAGIC  DEATH 


431 


children  playing  war  that  they  were  dancing  to  ruin  above  a 
volcano.  Chenier,  the  beloved  country  doctor,  is  their  leader. 
Girod,  the  Swiss,  has  come  up  to  show  them  how  to  drill.  They 
take  possession  of  a  newly  built  convent.  Then  on  Sunday,  the 
3d  of  December,  comes  word  of  the  defeat  down  on  the  Riche- 
lieu. The  moderate  men  plead  with  Chenier  to  stop  now  before 
it  is  too  late  ;  but  Chenier  will  not  listen.  He  knows  the  cause 
is  right,  and  with  the  credulity  or  faith  of  a  simple  child  hopes 
some  mad  miracle  will  win  the  day.  Still  he  is  much  moved  ; 
tears  stream  down  his  face.  Then  on  December  14  the  church 
bells  ring  a  crazy  alarm.  The  troops  are  coming,  two  thousand 
of  them  from  Montreal  under  Sir  John  Colborne,  the  governor. 
The  insurgent  army  melts  like  frost  before  the  sun.  Less  than 
one  hundred  men  stand  by  poor  Chenier.  At  eleven-thirty  the 
troops  sweep  in  at  both  ends  of  the  village  at  once.  Girod,  the 
Swiss  commander,  suicides  in  panic  flight.  Cooped  up  in 
the  church  steeple  with  the  flames  mounting  closer  round  them 
and  the  troopers  whooping  jubilantly  outside,  Chenier  and  his 
eighty  followers  call  out  :  "  We  are  done  !  We  are  sold  !  Let 
us  jump  !  "  Chenier  jumps  from  the  steeple,  is  hit  by  the  flying 
bullets,  and  perishes  as  he  falls.  His  men  cower  back  in  the 
flaming  steeple  till  it  falls  with  a  crash  into  the  burning  ruins. 
Amid  the  ash  heap  are  afterwards  found  the  corpses  of  seventy- 
two  patriots.  The  troopers  take  one  hundred  prisoners  in  the 
region,  then  set  fire  to  all  houses  where  loyalist  flags  are  not 
waved  from  the  windows. 

Matters  have  now  come  to  such  an  outrageous  pass  that  the 
British  government  can  no  longer  ignore  the  fact  that  the  colony 
has  been  goaded  to  desperation  by  the  misgovernment  of  the 
ruling  clique.  Lord  Durham  is  appointed  special  commissioner 
with  extraordinary  powers  to  proceed  to  Canada  and  investigate 
the  whole  subject  of  colonial  government.  One  may  guess  that 
the  ruling  clique  were  prepared  to  take  possession  of  the  new 
commissioner  and  prime  him  with  facts  favorable  to  their  side; 
but  Durham  was  not  a  man  to  be  monopolized  by  any  faction. 


432 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


When  he  arrived,  in  May  of  1838,  he  quickly  gave  proof  that 
he  would  follow  his  own  counsels  and  choose  his  own  council- 
ors. His  first  official  declaration  was  practically  an  act  of  am- 
nesty to  the  rebels,  eight  only  of  the  leading  prisoners,  among 
them  Dr.  Nelson,  being  punished  by  banishment  to  Bermuda, 
the  rest  being  simply  expelled  from  Canada. 

This  act  was  tantamount  to  a  declaration  that  the  rebels 
possessed  some  rights  and  had   suffered   real  grievances,  and 

the  governing  rings  in 
both  Toronto  and  Que- 
bec took  furious  offense. 
Complaints  against  Dur- 
ham poured  into  the 
English  colonial  office, — 
complaints,  oddly  enough, 
that  he  had  violated  the 
spirit  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution by  sentencing 
subjects  of  the  Crown 
without  trial.  Though 
every  one  knew  that  in 
Canada's  turbulent  con- 
dition trial  by  jury  was 
impossible,  Durham's  po- 
litical foes  in  England 
took  up  the  cry.  In  ad- 
dition to  political  com- 
plaints were  grudges  against  Durham  for  personal  slight  ;  and  it 
must  be  confessed  the  haughty  earl  had  ridden  roughshod  over 
all  the  petty  prejudices  and  little  dignities  of  the  colonial  mag- 
nates. The  upshot  was,  Durham  resigned  in  high  dudgeon  and 
sailed  for  England  in  November  of  1838. 

On  his  way  home  he  dictated  to  his  secretary,  Charles  Bul- 
ler,  the  famous  report  which  is  to  Canada  what  the  Magna 
Charta  is  to  England  or  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  the 
United  States.    Without  going  into  detail,  it  may  be  said  that  it 


LORD    DURHAM,  SPECIAL    COMMISSIONER    TO 
CANADA,   1S3S 


DURHAM   GIVES  CANADA  A  MAGNA  CHARTA       433 

recommended  complete  self-government  for  the  colonies.  As 
disorders  had  again  broken  out  in  Canada,  the  English  govern- 
ment hastened  to  embody  the  main  recommendations  of  Durham's 
report  in  the  Union  Act  of  1840,  which  came  into  force  a  year 
later.  By  it  Upper  and  Lower  Canada  were  united  on  a  basis 
of  equal  representation  each,  though  Quebec's  population  was 
six  hundred  thousand  to  Ontario's  five  hundred  thousand. 
The  colonies  were  to  have  the  entire  management  of  their  rev- 
enues and  civil  lists.  The  government  was  to  consist  of  an 
Upper  Chamber  appointed  by  the  Crown  for  life,  a  representa- 
tive assembly,  and  the  governor  with  a  cabinet  of  advisers 
responsible  to  the  assembly. 

In  all,  more  than  seven  hundred  arrests  had  been  made  in 
Quebec  Province.  Of  these  all  were  released  but  some  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty,  and  the  state  trials  resulted  in  sentence  of 
banishment  against  fifty,  death  to  twelve.  In  modern  days  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  realize  the  degree  of  fanatical  hatred  gen- 
erated by  this  half  century  of  misgovernment.  Declared  one  of 
the  governing  clique's  official  newspapers  in  Montreal  :  "  Peace 
must  be  maintained,  even  if  we  make  the  country  a  solitude. 
French  Canadians  must  be  swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  .  .  . 
The  empire  must  be  respected,  even  at  the  cost  of  the  entire 
French  Canadian  people."  With  such  sentiments  openly 
uttered,  one  may  surely  say  that  the  Constitutional  Act  of  1791 
turned  back  the  pendulum  of  Canada's  progress  fifty  years,  and 
it  certainly  took  fifty  more  years  to  eradicate  the  bitterness 
generated  by  the  era  of  misgovernment. 

With  the  Upper  and  Lower  Canadas  united  in  a  federation  of 
two  provinces,  it  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  all  parts  of 
British  North  America  must  sooner  or  later  come  into  the  fold. 
It  would  be  hard  to  say  from  whom  the  idea  of  confederation 
of  all  the  provinces  first  sprang.  Purely  as  a  theory  the  idea 
may  be  traced  back  as  early  as  1 79 1 .  The  truth  is,  Destiny, 
Providence,  or  whatever  we  like  to  call  that  great  stream  of  con- 
current events  which  carries  men  and  nations  out  to  the  ocean 


434 


CANADA  :   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 


highway  of  a  larger  life,  forced  British  North  America  into  the 
Confederation  of  1867. 

In  the  first  place,  while  the  Union  worked  well  in  theory,  it 
was  exceedingly  difficult  in  practice.  Ontario  and  Quebec  had 
equal  representation.  One  was  Protestant,  the  other  Catholic  ; 
one  French,  the  other  English.  Deadlocks,  or,  to  use  the  slang 
of  the  street,  even  tugs  of  war,  were  inevitable  and  continual. 
All  Ontario  had  to  do  to  thwart  Quebec,  or  Quebec  had  to  do 
to  thwart  Ontario,  was  to  stand  together  and  keep  the  votes 
solid.    Coalition  ministries  proved  a  failure. 

In  the  second  place,  Ontario  was  practically  dependent  on  the 
customs  duties  collected  at  Quebec  ports  of  entry  for  a  provincial 
revenue.  The  goods  might  be  billed  for  Ontario ;  Quebec  col- 
lected the  tax. 

Ontario  was  also  dependent  on  Quebec  for  access  to  the  sea. 
Which  province  was  to  pay  for  the  system  of  canals  being  de- 
veloped, and  the  deepening  of  the  St.  Lawrence  ? 

Then  the  Oregon  Treaty  of  1846  had  actually  brought  a  cloud 
of  war  on  the  horizon.  In  case  of  war,  there  was 'the  question 
of  defense. 

Then  railways  had  become  a  very  live  question.  Quebec 
wanted  connection  with  New  Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia.  How 
was  the  cost  of  a  railroad  to  be  apportioned  ?  Red  River  was 
agitating  for  freedom  from  fur-trade  monopoly.  How  were  rail- 
ways to  be  built  to  Red  River  ? 

Ontario's  population  in  twenty  years  jumped  past  the  mil- 
lion mark.  Was  it  fair  that  her  million  people  should  have  only 
the  same  number  of  representatives  as  Quebec  with  her  half 
million  ?  Reformers  of  Ontario,  voiced  by  George  Brown  of 
The  Globe,  called  for  "  Rep.  by  Pop.,"  —  representation  by 
population. 

Civil  war  was  raging  in  the  United  States,  threatening  to  tear 
the  Union  to  tatters.  Why  ?  Because  the  balance  of  power  had 
been  left  with  the  states  governments,  and  not  enough  authority 
centralized  in  the  federal  government.  The  lesson  was  not  lost 
on  struggling  Canada. 


CONFEDERATION 


435 


England's  declaration  of  free  trade  brought  the  colonies  face  to 
face  with  the  need  of  some  united  action  to  raise  revenue  by  tariff. 

Then  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  license  of  monopoly  over 
the  fur  trade  of  the  west  was  nearing  expiration.  Should  the 
license  be  renewed  for  another  twenty  years,  or  should  Canada 
take  over  Red  River  as  a  new  province,  which  was  the  wish  of 
the  people  both  east  and 
west?  And  if  Canada  did 
buy  out  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company's  vested 
rights,  who  was  to  pay 
down  the  cost  ? 
•  Lastly,  was  John  A. 
Macdonald,  the  young 
lawyer  who  had  pleaded 
the  defense  of  the  pa- 
triot trials  at  Kingston 
in  1838,  now  a  leading 
politician  of  the  United 
Canadas,  weary  of  the 
hopeless  deadlocks  be- 
tween Ontario  and  Que- 
bec. With  almost  a  sixth 
sense  of  divination  in 
reading  the  signs  of  the 
times  in  the  trend  of 
events,  John  A.  Macdon- 
ald saw  that  Canada's 
one  hope  of  becoming  a 
national  power  lay  in  union,  —  confederation.  The  same  thing- 
was  seen  by  other  leaders  of  the  day,  by  all  that  grand  old 
guard  known  as  the  Fathers  of  Confederation,  sent  from  the 
different  provinces  to  the  conference  at  Quebec  in  October 
of  1864.  There  the  outline  of  what  is  known  as  the  British 
North  America  Act  was  drafted,  —  in  the  main  but  an  amplifi- 
cation of  Durham's  scheme,  made  broad  enough  to  receive  all 


JOHN  A.  MACDONALD 


436  CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  NORTH 

the  provinces  whenever  they  might  decide  to  come  into  Con- 
federation. The  delegates  then  go  back  to  be  indorsed  by  their 
provinces.  By  some  provinces  the  scheme  is  rejected.  New- 
foundland is  not  yet  part  of  Canada,  but  by  1867  Confederation 
is  an  accomplished  fact.  By  1871  the  new  Dominion  has  bought 
out  the  rights  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in  the  West,  and 
Manitoba  joins  the  Eastern  Provinces.  By  1885  a  railway  links 
British  Columbia  with  Nova  Scotia.  By  1905  the  great  hunting 
field  of  the  Saskatchewan  prairies  has  been  divided  into  two  new 
provinces,  Saskatchewan  and  Alberta,  each  larger  than  France. 

Such  is  barest  outline  of  Canada's  past.  What  of  the  future 
for  this  Empire  of  the  North  ?  That  future  is  now  in  the  making. 
It  lies  in  the  hands  of  the  men  and  women  who  are  living  to-day. 
In  the  past  Canada's  makers  dreamed  greatly,  and  they  dared 
greatly,  and  they  took  no  heed  of  impossibles,  and  they  spent 
without  stint  of  blood  and  happiness  for  high  aim.  When  Canada 
lost  ground  in  the  progress  of  the  nations,  as  in  the  corrupt  days 
of  Bigot's  rule  during  the  French  regime,  or  the  equally  corrupt 
days  of  the  family  compact  after  the  Conquest,  it  was  because 
the  altar  fires  of  her  ideals  were  allowed  to  burn  low. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  past  is  but  a  rear  light  marking  the 
back  trail  of  the  ship's  passage.  Say  rather  it  is  the  search  light 
on  the  ship's  prow,  pointing  the  way  over  the  waters. 

To-day  Canada  is  in  the  very  vanguard  of  the  nations.  Her 
wheat  fields  fill  the  granaries  of  the  world  ;  and  to  her  ample 
borders  come  the  peoples  of  earth's  ends,  bringing  tribute,  not 
of  incense  and  frankincense  as  of  old,  but  of  manhood  and 
strength,  of  push  and  lift,  of  fire  and  hope  and  enthusiasm  and 
the  daring  that  conquers  all  the  difficulties  of  life  ;  bringing, 
too,  all  the  outworn  vices  of  an  Old  World,  all  the  vicious 
instincts  of  the  powers  that  prey  in  the  Under  World.  Canada's 
prosperity  is  literally  overflowing  from  a  cornucopia  of  super- 
abundant plenty.  Will  her  constitution,  wrested  from  political 
and  civil  strife  ;  will  her  moral  stamina,  bred  from  the  heroism 
of  an  heroic  past,  stand  the  strain,  the  tremendous  strain  of  the 


ft    X 


2     £ 


WHAT  OF  THE   FUTURE  437 

new  conditions?  Will  she  assimilate  the  strange  new  peoples — ■ 
strange  in  thought  and  life  and  morals  —  coming  to  her  borders  ? 
Will  she  eradicate  their  vices  like  the  strong  body  of  a  healthy 
constitution  throwing  off  disease  ;  or  will  she  be  poisoned  by 
the  toxins  of  vicious  traits  inherited  from  centuries  of  vicious 
living?  Will  she  remake  the  men,  regenerate  the  aliens,  com- 
ing to  her  hearth  fire  ;  or  will  they  drag  her  down  to  their  de- 
generacy ?  Above  all,  will  she  stand  the  strain,  the  tremendous 
strain,  of  prosperity,  and  the  corruption  that  is  attendant  on 
prosperity  ?  Quien  sabe  ?  Let  him  answer  who  can  ;  and  the 
question  is  best  answered  by  watching  the  criminal  calendar. 
(Is  the  percentage  of  convictions  as  certain  and  relentless  as 
under  the  old  regime  ?  What  manner  of  crimes  is  growing 
up  in  the  land  ?)  And  the  question  may  be  answered,  too,  by 
watching  whether  the  press  and  platform  and  pulpit  stand  as 
everlastingly  and  relentlessly  for  sharp  demarkation  between 
right  and  wrong,  for  the  sharp  demarkation  between  truth,  plain 
truth,  and  intentional  mendacity,  as  under  the  regime  of  the  old 
hard  days.  When  political  life  grows  corrupt,  is  it  now  cleansed, 
or  condoned  ?  Let  each  Canadian  answer  for  himself.  If  the 
altar  fires  of  Canada's  ideals  again  burn  low,  again  she  will  lag 
in  the  progress  of  the  world's  great  builders. 


INDEX 


Note.  In  all  names  of  persons,  names  have  been  spelled  as  signed  by  the  person;  in 
names  of  places,  as  written  in  early  state  documents.  In  all  other  cases  the  rulings  of  the 
Canadian  Geographic  Board  have  been  followed,  with  the  exception  of  Montagnais,  which 
is  given  Montaignais,  Vadousac  as  Tadoussac,  Sant  as  Satilt,  Louishourg  as  Louisburg, 
Den  ys  as  Denis. 


Abenaki  Indians,  171,  192,  193 
Abercrombie,  252,  256,  258,  259 
Acadia,  40,   41,  61,  64,  65,  69,  70,   192, 
196,  197,  204,  214,  216,  220,  231,  233, 

235.  -36-  241 
Agona,  19 
Alaska,  321,  324 
Albanel,  Father,  143,  144 
Albany,  97,  153,  159,  160,  162 
Alberta,  297,  436 
Alexander,  20.8 
Alexander,  Sir  William,  61 
Algonquin    Indians,    52,    103,    104,    105, 

106,  108 
Allen,  Ethan,  29S 
Allumette  Island,  51,  52 
Alymer,  50 
Amherst,  236 
Amherst,    Sir    Jeffrey,    252,    253,    256, 

261,  268,  274,  277 
Andre,  Mademoiselle,  122 
Annapolis,  200,  201,  215,  231 
Annapolis   Basin,  35,  37,  44,  61,  65,   67, 

69,   177 
Anticosti  Island,  12,  134,  177 
Appleton,  Col'  >nel,  197 
Argall,  Samuel,   13.  44,  61 
Arnold,  Benedict,  300-309 
Astor,  John  Jacob,  294,  3  50,  5  5  5 
Astoria,  333.  379 
Athabasi  a,  324,  327,  390,  391,  308,  399, 

40  r,  402 
A  ubert,  7 

Aul.iy.  34,    55,  36,  4  |,  236 
Aulneau,  208,  209 

Bad  River,  320,  3  j< 

Balboa,  6 

Ban  I. iv,  <  laptain,  56  5,  364 


Bane,  Charlotte,  78 

Basin  of  Mines,  195 

Basques,  44,  45,  40.  58 

Basset,  195 

Bathurst,  Lord,  4 1 1 

Bay  of  Islands,  10 

Bayly,  Governor,  144,  1S7 

Beaubassin,  195,  23(1 

Beauharnois,  Governor,  206 

Beaujeu,  141 

Beauport,  269,  275 

Beaupre,  19 

Beausejour,  231,  236 

Beaver  Dams,  362 

Bella  Coola,  330 

Belle  Isle,  10,  19,  20 

Belle  Isle  Straits,  10,  12 

Bering,  Vitus,  212 

Berkeley,  Admiral,  335,  336 

Biard,  Father,  41,  42,  44 

Biencourt,  34,  40,  42,  61 

Bigot,  Intendant,  241-247,  274 

Black  Rock,  369. 

Blackwater  River,  330 

Blanc  Sablon,  10,  II,  12 

Bloody  Brook,  202 

Boerstler,  Lieutenant,  360,  362 

Bona  Vista,  5,  S 

Bonaventure,  195 

Boscawen,  226,  234,  252,  256 

Boston,  66,  194,  195,  203,  216 

Boucher,  394 

Bougainville,  243,  261,  270 

Bouquet,  287,  288,  289,  290 

Bourgeoys,  Marguerite,  117 

Bourlamaque,  243,  262 

Braddock,  General,  226-230 

Bradstreet,  General,  260,  2S7,  2SS 

Brant,  Joseph,  310,  315 


[39 


44Q 


CANADA:   THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


Bras  d'Or  Lakes,  7 

Brebeuf,  Jean  de,  71,  So,  82-90 

Bridgar,  149 

British  Columbia,  323,  436 

Brock,  Isaac,  33S-348,  363 

Brockville,  349 

Brown,  George,  371,  434 

Brule,  Etienne,  48,  50,  52-57,  83,  127 

Buffalo,  369,  371 

Buller,  Charles,  432 

Burlington  Heights,  365,  372 

Burton,  Colonel,  272 

Cabot,  John,  3-7,  26,  61 

Cabot,  Sebastian,  5 

Cadillac,  La  Motte,  119,  124,  163,  165, 

205 
Caldwell,  General,  412 
California,  319,  40S 
Cameron,  Duncan,  389,  391 
Campbell    Captain,  285 
Cape  Breton,  5    6,  7,  38,  43,  61,  62,  65, 

124,  204,  2(4,  215 
Cape  Cod,  30,  37 
Cape  Diamond,  13,  19,  45,  80 
Cape  Rouge,  19,  22 
Cape  Sable,  61,  65 
Carden,  Major,  299 
Carillon,  50 

<  larleton,  62 

Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  279,  280,  281,  298- 

312 
Carterett,  George,  114 
Cartier,  Jacques,  7-22,  23j  40,  45,  77,  79 
Casson,  Dollier  de,  121,  126,  128,  130 
Castle  Island,  10 
Catalina,  8 

Chaleur,  Bay  of,  11,  188 
Chambly,  Fort,  125 
( 'haniplain,  Lake,  47,  203,  237,  242,  298, 

299,  378 
Champlain,  Madame,  57 
('haniplain,  Samuel,  32,  t,^^  3S>  37,  3^, 

39,  40,  44,  45,  46,  48-60,  77,  80,  82, 

83   "5 

Chandler,  356,  357,  359 

Charity  Island,  92 

Charles  II,  114,  115 

( 'harlottetown,  31  | 

(   Imi  Hon   Island,   1  56,  too,  161 

Charnisay,  Sieur  d'Aulnay  de,  (>^-6g 

Chasteaufort,  Man   Antoine  de,  115 

<  'hateau  Bay    10 
Chateauguay  River,  368,  369 

<  liatham,  279 

<  'hats  Rapids,  51 


Chaudiere  Falls,  50,  104 

Chauncey,  349,  351-356,  366 

Chenier,  Dr.,  429,  43 1 

Chicago  Portage,  133 

Chignecto,  231 

Chippewa,  371,  372,  373 

Chippewyan,  Fort,  325,  402 

Chomedey,  Paul  de,  75 

Christian  Islands,  92,  99 

Chrysler's  Farm,  367 

Church,  Ben,  195 

Churchill,  Fort,  297,  318,  319 

Clark,  lieutenant,  175 

Clark,  William,  310,  330 

Clarke,  John,  391,  398,  401,  402 

Cobequid,  236 

Cocking,  Matthew,  297 

Coffin,  John,  306 

Colborne,  Sir  John,  431 

Columbia  River,  321-323 

Columbus,  3,  6 

Contrecceur,  230 

Cook,  James,  263,  319-321 

Coppermine  River,  296 

Cornwallis,  Edward,  221,  232 

Cortereal,  Caspar,  6 

Courcelle,  Governor,  125,  126 

Craig,  Governor,  336,  337 

Cree  Indians,   103,  no,   112,  20S,  210, 

386 
(  re\  ecoeur,  Fort,  13S,  139 
Cumberland,  236 

Dablon,  132 

D'Ailleboust,   Louis,  78,  79,  115,   119, 

120,  172 
Dal/ell,  285 

Daniel,  Father,  27,  S4,  87 
D'Anville,  Duke,  220 
D'Argenson,  no,  115 
Dauversiere,    Jerome    le  Royer  de  la, 

74,  i'7 
D'Avaugour,  in,  115 
Davis,  30 

Davost,  Father,  84 
Dearborn,  General,  353,  356 
I  >eerfield,  193,  195 
De  Me/.y,  1 15 

De  Monts,  Sieur,  33-37,  4°,  44.  45'  4X 
I  tcnis,  7 
Denonville,  Marquis  de,  163,  164,  167, 

168 
I  )r  Salaberry,  368,  369 
I  letroit,  03,  205,  276,  2S6,  291,  310,  338, 

339,  340,  363 
De  Troyes,  Chevalier,  157,  15S,  159,  160 


INDEX 


441 


Dieskau,  Baron,  226,  237,  240 

Digge's  Island,  154 

Dinwiddie,  Governor,  224 

Dobbs,  Captain,  376 

I  >i  11  het   Island,  35 

I  )og  Rib  Indians,  326 

Dollard,  Adam,  107,  10S,  109,  1  10 

Don  Quadra,  322 

Donnacona,  13,  18,  19 

Douglas,  Fort,  386,  387,  390,  391,  393, 

395-  397 
Douglas,  Governor,  408 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  26,  27 
I  >rew,  426 
Drucourt,  253 
Drummond,  Sir  Gordon,  369,  370,  372, 

374,  376,  377>  37^ 
Du  Chene,  Lake,  50,  105 
Duchambon,  219 
Ducharme,  362 
1  >uluth,  )  12,  146,  163,  165 
Duluth.  Daniel  G.,  n8,  124,  205 
Duncombe,  Dr.,  424,  425 
Dupuis,  Major,  98 
Duquesne,  Fort,  224,  226,  227,  22S,  252, 

260 
Duquesne,  Marquis,  224 
Durell,  261 

Durham,  Lord,  431,  432 
Duval,  46 

Egg  Islands,  203 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  26 
Elliott,  Lieutenant,  343,  344 
Eric,  Earl,  1 

Erie,  Fort,  344.  370,  377 

Erie,  Lake,  129,  130,  131,  137,  341,  349 

Ermatinger,  Judge,  424 

Etherington,  Major,  2S6 

Evans,  344 

Fidler,  Peter,  389 

Findley,  295 

Fitzgibbons,    357,    359,  360,   362,  373, 

421,  422 
Fleury,  42,  43 
Fontaine,  Marguerite,  170 
Fontaine,  Sieur  Pierre,  170 
Forbes,  John,  260 
Forsyth,  353 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  300 
I'  1  aser,  Simon.  3  50,  531,   ,  }2 
Fraser  River,  3  50,  33  r,  5  52 
French  Bay,   ;=, 
French  River,  53,  q  | 
Frenchman's  Bay,  42 


Freneuse,  Madame,  195,  196,  202 

Frobisher,  Martin,  25,  30 

Frontenac,  Count,   132,   134,  135,    136. 

140,  150,  167,  171,  [76-188 
Frontenac,  Fori,   1  35,  136,  137.  141,  [63, 

178,  179,  1S0,  181.   [83,  252, 
Fundy,  Pay  of,  35,  42,  62,  63,  66 
Funk  Island,  9 

Galet,  170 

Galinee,  129,  130,  131 

Garry,  Nicholas,  406 

Gaspe,  11,  12,  32,  124.  177,  256 

Gatineau,  50,  104 

George,  Fort,  342,  344,  348,  355,  356, 

36o>  372 
George,  Lake,  240,  242 
Georgian  Pay,  54,  83,  84,  92 
Gibraltar,  Fort,  386,  387 
Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  25-29 
Gilbert  du  Thet,  42,  43 
Gillam,  Pen,  148,   141;.  150 
Gillam,  Captain,  144,  145,  149 
Gillam,  Zechariah,  113 
Gillam's  Island,  148 
Girod,  428,  431 
Gladwin,  284 
Glen  Rae,  Dr.,  407,  408 
Glenn,  174 
Goat  Island.  44 
Gore.  Colonel,  429 
Gorham,  248 

Gourlay,  Robert,  415,  416,  417 
Grand  Pre,  231,  236,  241 
Grant,  Cuthbert,  390,  391,  394 
Gray,  Robert,  321-323 
Great  Lakes,  53,  71 
Green,  Henry,  31 
Green,  Piper,  387 
Green  Pay,  93,  103,  105,  132 
Greenland,  1,  2,  5 
Griguet,  9 
Grimmington,  154 
Groseillers,  Chouart,  150,151,152,  153, 

Groseillers,    Medard    Chouart    de.    85, 

98-115,  118,  M4-I53 
( rudrid,  1.  2,  3 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  140,141 
( tulf  Stream,  6 
<  lull  Island,  9 


I  l.i  I  la  Bay,  9 

I  faldimand,  General, 

Halifax.  231,  232.  2^ 
Hamilton,  1  20 


3'  7 


442 


CANADA:   THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


Hampton,  General,  367,  368 

Harrison,  General,  363 

Harvey,  357,  358 

Haverhill,  198 

Hayes  River,  14S,  385 

Head,  Sir  Francis,  421 

Ilearne,  Samuel,  296,  297,  318,  319 

Hebert,  Louis,  44,  57 

Hebert,  Madame,  79 

Hendry,  Anthony,  243,  295 

Hennepin,  Louis,  137,  138,  139 

Henry,  Alexander,  286,  287 

Henry,  John,  337 

Henry  VII,  3,  4 

Ilertel,  Francois,  174,  175 

Hill,  Jack,  202,  203 

Hochelaga,  12,  14,  15,  16,  18 

Holmes,  Admiral,  269 

Horton,  236 

Hudson,  Henry,  30,  31,  32,  49 

Hudson  Bay,  30,  32,  103,  no,  113,  115, 

134,  143,  144,  146,  148,  161,  162,  164, 

191,  204,  3 1 8,  406 
Hudson  River,  30 
Hudson  Straits,  30 
Hull,  338-340 
Hume,  420 
Hume,  Captain,  154 
Huron,  Lake,  54 

Huron  Indians,  46,  48,  52-57,  82-93,  9^' 
108- 1 10,  126 

Iberville,  157-163,  165,  172,  174,  183, 
184,  185,  186,  188 

Iberville,  Chateauguay,  1  S3 

Iceland,  3 

[honateria,  84 

Illinois  Indians,  133,  138,  163,  189 

Illinois  River,  133,  139 

Iroquois  Indians,  46-48,  52-57,  7S,  79, 
86,  87-102,  103,  105,  106,  108,  110, 
125,  128-130,  135,  162—17 1,  183,204 

Island  of  Orleans,  13 

Isle  of  Demons,  10,  20,  21 

Jacqueline,  Frances  Marie,  67 

Jalobert,  Captain,  12,  19 

James  Bay,  30,  31,  113,  144,  15S 

Jogues,  Father,  85,  94,  97 

Johnson,   William,  237,  240 

Jolliet,   Louis,    118,    130,    132-134,    130. 

146,  152,  177,  205 
Jolliet,  Madame,   |S  j 
[oseph,  I lOuis,  243 
Juett,  30 
Jumonville.  225 


Kpministiquia,  139,  143,  205,  207 

Kidd.  Captain,  1  so 

King's  Cove,  5 

Kingston,  135,  260,  3^4,  370,  427 

Kirke,  I  )avid,  58,  '  o.  1 1  j 

Kirke,  Gervaise,  58,  63 

Kirke,  Louis,  58,  63 

Kirke,  Mary,  114.  115,  145 

Kirke,   Thomas,  58,  63 

La  1  Jarre,  140,  150,  [63,  [68 

La  Bonte,  1  70 

Labrador,    1,  6,  7,   10,  30,  46,   121,   143, 

H7 
Lachine  Rapids,  17 
La  Fleche,  Father,  41 
La  Forest,  146 
Lake  of  the  Woods,  1 12 
Lalemant,  88,  89,  90 
La  Martiniere,  153 
La  Monnerie,  Lieutenant  de,  171 
Lamont,  19 

La  Motte,  Admiral,  226 
La  Naudiere,  M.  de,  171 
Langdale,  287 

La  Peltrie,  Madame  de,  72,  73,  74,  77,  78 
La  Perouse,  Admiral,  318,  319 
La  Place,  298 
I  ..1  Reine,  Fort  de,  2  1  1 
La  Roche,  Marquis  de,  23-25,  40 
La    Salle,    Robert  Cavalier  cle,    [9,   11S, 

1  28- 1 4 2,  146,  205 
Fa  Saussaye,  42 
La  Tour,  Charles  de,  61-60 
La  Tour,  Claude  de,  63,  64 
La  Tour,  Madame  Charles  de,  (17   69 
Laurentian  Hills,  50 
Lauson,  75 

Lauzon,  Jean  de,  9S,  115 
Lauzon-Charny,  Charles  de,  115 
Laval,  Bishop,  122 
La  Verendrye,  Jean,  207-209 
La  Verendrye,  Jemmeraie,  206-208 
La  Verendrye,  Pierre  Gauthier,  206-212 
Lawrence,  Colonel,  231,  233,   234,  235, 

253 
Le  Bers,  172 
Le  Breton,  Captain,  12 
Le  Caron,  Joseph,  52,  53 
Fc  Chesnaye,  146,  150.  1^7 
Feif,  1 

I..-   feune,  Pierre,  79,  So,  81,  82 
Le  Loutre,  Louis  Joseph,  213   21(1,220, 

231,    232,    2  11,    27S 

Le  Moyne,  Charles,  108,   118,  1 -'6,  146, 

l>7  ' 


INDEX 


443 


Le  Moyne,  Father,  98 

Le    Moyne,    Maricourt,    1 57—161,    172, 

173,  179,  182 
Le  Moyne,  Ste.  Ilelene,  157-159,  172, 

[73,  179,  1 82 
Le  Moyne,  Serigny,  1S3,  184,  187 
Lery,  Baron  de,  7.  24 
Lescarbot,  Marc,  37-40,  63 
Leslie,  Captain,  286 
Levis,  Chevalier  de,  243,  245,  246,  249, 

250,  267,  274 
Lewis,  330 

Lewiston,  342-348,  369 
Lung  Sault  Rapids,  108 
Lung  Saut,  50 
Lorette  mission,  93 
Loudon,  Earl,  243,  248,  252 
Louisburg,  215,  216,  21S,  220,  234,  241, 

248,  252 
Louisiana,  140 
Lount,  424,  427 
Lundy's  Lane,  373"375 

Macdonald,  John  A.,  427,  435 
MacDonell,   Miles,  381,  38 5,  3SS-390, 

396,  397 
Mi  I  >onnell,  368,  369 
M'  I  (onnell,  350 
Macdonnell,  Major,  346,  348 
MacGillivray,  William,  380,  381 
Mackay,  Alexander,  327,  328 
McKay,  Tom,  407 
MacKenzie,   Alexander,    324-331,  3S0, 

398 
MacKenzie,  Roderick,  32 q.   527 
MacKenzie,  William  Lyon,  420-426 
MacKenzie  River,  327 
Mackinac,  Straits  of,  105 
McLean,  Hector,  300.  387 
McLoughlin,  Dr.  John,  407,  409 
McNab,  Allan,  422,  424-426 
Magellan,  6 

Maine,  42,  192,  204,  310 
Maisonneuve,  Sieurde,  75-79,  108,  118, 

119,  120 
Maitland,  Sir  Peregrine,  415,  417,  41S 
Mance,  Jeanne,  76,  78,  117 
Mandanes,  21 1 
Manitoba,  436 
Manitoulin  Island.  8  |,  93 
Maquinna,  322 
Man  h.  ( lolonel,  lo<>,  107 

Max  0   Polo,   3 

Maiic  of  the  I111  arnation,  72  74 
Marquette,  Father,   1  18,  1  52,   135,   1  ;  i, 
205 


Martin,  Abraham,  44,  57 

Mascarene,  Paul.  201,  202,  215 

Mascoutin  Indians,   132,  138 

Massacre  Island,  209 

Masse,  Father,  42 

Matonabbee,  296,  297,  319 

Mattawa,  52 

Matthews,  414,  415,  427 

Meares,  321 

Meigs,  Fort,  363 

Membertou,  Henry,  3S,  39,  41,  42 

Meneval,  177 

Mercer,  Colonel,  247 

Miami,  Fort,  284 

Michigan,  339 

Michigan,  Lake,  103,  133 

Michilimackinac,  137,  276,  286,  310, 

379 
Micmac    Indians,  220 
Midland,  54 
Mingan,  12 
Minnesota,  205,  20S 
Miquelon,  204,  277 
Miramichi  Indians,  ro,  11,  256 
Mississippi    River,    106,    128,   133, 

Mi 
Missouri  River,  133,  139,  211 
Mohawk  River,  127 
Monckton,  231,  234-235,  261,  265, 
Monro,  Lieutenant,  250 
Montaignais  Indians,  6,  10,  40.  81, 
Montana,  21  2 
Montcalm,   Marquis    de,    44,     243- 

257,   265-269,   271,  273 
Montgomery,  Richard,  300-308 
Montmagny,    Charles    de,    71,    72, 

76-78,  115 
Montmorency,  13 
Montreal,  16,  48-51,  72-7S,  94,  107, 

117,  120,  165,  191,  267,  274-302, 

367,  400,  427,  428 
Moon,  Captain,  162 
Moose  Factory,  153,  157,  15S 
Moraviantown,  365,  366 
Mount  Desert,  42,  44 
Mount  Royal,  49,  7S 
Murray,  Lord  John,  234,  235,  25S, 

270,   274,  277-280 
Muskoka,  84 


L39> 


82 

250, 

74. 

108, 
340, 


261, 


Nelson.  Dr.,  421),  430.  432 
V  Ison,  Port,  152.  153,  183.  185,  384 
Nelson   River,  148,  385 
Nepigon,  206 

New    Brunswick,     i".  <'>.:  65,  204.   220. 
312,  313-  434 


444 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   NORTH 


New  Caledonia,  406,  407 
New  Hampshire,  172 
New  York,  97,  165,  221 
Newfoundland,    5-7,  9,  10,   12,  19,  23, 

30,  183,  184,  204 
Niagara,   129,  267,  316,  340,  351,  369, 

37°,  379 
Nicholson,  Francis,  19S-203 
Nicolet,  Jean,  71,  103,  127 
Nipissing  Indians,  51,  53 
Nipissing  Lake,  51,  53,  103 
Noel,  19 
Nootka,  320-322 
Norsemen,  2 
Nova  Scotia,  1,  34,  35,  61,  220,  31  2,  317, 

379,  434.  436 

O'Callaghan,  429 

Ochagach,  Chief,  206 

Ochiltree,  Lord,  62 

Ogden,  407 

Ogdensburg,  350 

Ohio  River,  12S,  130,  133,  224,  221/.  2  |i 

Olier,  Jean  Jacques,  75,  76 

( )nondaga,  Lake,  98 

Onondagas,  55,  98,  99,  100 

Ontario,  84,  127,  312,315,  316,  338,  349 

Ontario,  Lake,  54,  57,  127,  129,  134,  349 

Oregon,  406,  407 

Orleans  Island,  13,  76 

Oswego,  247,  250 

Ottawa,  46 

Ottawa  Indians,  51 

Ottawa  River,  17,  40,  51,  52,  57,  Si. 

Papineau,  427—429 

Parliament  Hill,  50,  104 

Parry  Sound,  54 

Parsnip  River,  328 

Passamaquoddy,  195 

Pays  d'en  Haut,  182 

Peace  River,  326,  327 

Pean,  Madame,  245 

Peguis,  Chief,  392,  393,  395 

Penetang,  54,  83,  85 

Pepperrell,  William,  216,  219 

Pepys,  Samuel,  153 

Pere,  Jan,  130,  132,  152-159 

Perrot,  Nicholas,  132,  163 

Perry,  3  10 

Phips,  Sir  William,  176-17S,  182 

Pierre,  80,  81,  82 

Pierre,  Fort,  208 

Pi'<e,  353-  354 

Pitt,  Fort,  290 

Pittsburg,  224,  228,  260 


Place  d'Armes,  79 

Place  Royale,  48 

Placentia,  18  ^ 

Plenderleath,  Major,  358 

Poncet,  Pere,  94,  97 

Pontgrave,  32-38,  4-%  45,  71 

Pontiac,  276,  281,  286,  291,  292 

Port  Dover,  131 

Port  Royal,   35-44,  57,61,  64-70,   114, 

191,  194,  202 
Port  Royal  Basin,  198 
Port  Stanley,  130 
Portland,  Me.,  171,  175 
Portneuf,  175 

Poutrincourt,  Baron  de,  34-42 
Powell,  416,  417 
Presqu'  Isle,  276,  2S4,  34S,  363 
Preston,  Major,  300 
Prevost,  Sir  George,  349,  370,  376,  378, 

410,  411 
Primeau,  Louis,  297 
Prince  Edward  Island,    214,    215,    232, 

256,  312,  314 
Procter,  363,  365,  366 
Puget  Sound, ^22 

(Quebec,  13,  17,  44,45,  52,  57,  59,  60, 
63,  7 1  -82,  94,  107,  117,  150,  [68,  171, 
17S-1S8,  202,  232,  252,  260-275.  276- 
309,  316,  317,  412,  432,  434,  -435 

Queenston  Heights,  342-347,  352,  360, 
372 

Quesnel.   531 

Quinte,  Bay  of,  127 

Quirpon,  <j 

Radisson,  Pierre  Esprit,  95,  96,  98-115, 

11S,  144-154,  205 
Ragueneau,  Father,  91-93,  99,  100 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  25,  26,  30 
Ramezay,  271 
Rasle,  Pere,  213 
Rat,  164,  165 
Razilli,  Isaac,  65 
Red  River,  381,  388-392 
Riall,  374 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  57,  5S,  65 
Richelieu  River,  46,  48,  125,  429 
Richmond,  Duke  of,  417,  41 8,  419 
Richmond  Gulf,  30 
Rideau  River,  50,  104 
Robertson,    Colin,    380-383,  390,    391, 

393,   596,  400-403 
Roberval,  Marguerite,  20,  21 
Roberval,  Sieur  de,  18  23,  40 
Rogers,  Robert,  242,  276,  281,  285 


INDEX 


445 


Rolph,  Dr.,  421-425 

Ross,  407 

Rouville,  Hertel  de,  193,  194,  19S 

Rupert,  32,  153 

Rupert  River,  113,  115,  161 

Rupert's  Fort,  158,  161 

Sable  Island,  7,  23,  65,  114,  220 

Sackett's  Harbor,  370 

Saguenay,  12,  22,  32,  73,  113 

St.  Anne  de  Beaupre,  120 

St.  Anthony,  Falls  of,  139 

St.  Charles,  Fort,  20S 

St.  Charles   River,  13,    14,  15,    17,  429, 

43° 
St.  Denys,  65,  71 
St.  Eustache,  430 
St.  Francis,  Lake,  129 
St.  Helen's  Island.  49,  77 
St.  Ignace,  85,  SS,  89,  91 
St.  Jean  Ba'tiste,  85 
St.  John,  Fort,  65,  67,  70 
St.  John  River,  35,  62,  63,  64,  65,  67 
St.  John's,  1  (j,  26,  28,  300 
St.  Joseph,  85,  87,  88,  284 
St.  Joseph  Island,  92 
St.  Lawrence  River,  12,   13,  15,  17,  19, 

46,  71,  7^,  126 
St.  Louis,  61,  85,  88,  89,  91,  292 
St.  Louis,  Lake,  129 
St.  Lusson,  132 
St.  Malo,  43 

St.  .Mary's  Bay,  34,  36,  256 
St.  Peter,  Lake,  15,  71 
Si.  Pierre,  204,  224,  277,  279,  2S0,  2S1 
St.  Thomas  Town.  413 
St.  Valliere,  Bishop,  122 
Sle.  Anne's,  49 

Ste.  Croix  River,  35,  37,  44,  310 
Ste.  Marie  Mission,  85-92 
Saint-Castin,    Baron  de,  175,   195,  197, 

200,  201,  202 
Salmon   Falls,   1  y ^j ,  175 
San  Francisco,  407,  408 
Sandusky,  276,  313 
Sandwich  Islands.   J2  1 
Sargeant,  Governor,  155,  150.  159,  if>o 
Saskatchewan,  212.  24;.   z<)j,  401,  403, 

436 
Saull  Ste.   Mane.  106,  132,  378 
Saunders,  261 .  269 
Schenectady,  1  7  3.  1  7  | 
Schuyler,  ( 'aptain,  1 76 
Scott,  Hercules,  373,  371 
Secord,  James,  360 
Secord,  Laura,  360-362 


Sedgwick,  Major,  70 

Selkirk,  385 

Selkirk,  Lord,  317,  380,  381,  3S4,   3SS, 

390,  396,  397,  39S,  400 
Semple,  Robert,  390,  392,  393,  394 
Seven  Oaks,  394,  399 
Sheaffe,  General,  346,  347,  354 
Sherbrooke,  Sir  John,  412,  417 
Simcoe,  Lake,  54,  84,  85 
Simcoe,  Lieutenant  Governor,  316,  412 
Simpson,  Sir  George,  406 
Sioux  Indians,  103 
Skraelings,  1 
Smithsend,  154 
Smyth,  348 
Sorcerer  Indians,  51 
Sorel,  Dame,  146 
Sorel,  Fort,  125 
Stadacona,  13 
Staring  Hairs,  53 
Stobo,  Robert,  268 
Stony  Creek,  357,  358 
Stopford,  Major,  300 
Stuart,  331 
Subercase,  197-200 
Superior,  Lake,  85,  112 
Susquehanna  Indians,  54 
Swanton,  Vt.,  429 
Sylvie,  157 

Tadoussac,  32,  34,  14,  58,  63,  73.  74,  94, 

L34.  177 
Talbot,  Tom,  413 

Talon,  Jean.  123-125,  128,  132,  136,  143 
Tecumseh,  339,  363 
Tessouat,  Chief,  51 
Texas,  141 

Thomas,  General,  309 
Thompson,  David,  332,  ^33 
Thornstein,  1,  2 
Thorwald,  1 
Three    Rivers,  71,  82,  83,    04,  95,    98, 

107,  113,  124,  206,  277 
Ticonderoga,  Fort,  242,  249,  252,  256, 

260,  29S 
Tobacco  Indians,  85,  93 
Tonty,  Henry,  137-141 
Toronto,  351,  353,  355,  415,  420,  422, 

423,  43^ 
Townshend,  261.  265,  270 
Tracy,  Marquis  de,  125,  126 
Trent  River,  54 
Trinity  River,  14  1 
Truro,  236 
Twin  Cities,  139 
Twin  Mountains  Lake,  49 


446 


CANADA:    THE   EMPIRE  OF  THE   NORTH 


Ungava  Bay,  30 

Van  Egmond,  421,  422,  424 

Van  Rensselaer,  342-348 

Van  Shoultz,  427 

Vancouver,  George,  319,  321-323 

Vancouver  Island,  320-322 

Vaudreuil,  Governor  de,  193,  197,  243 

262,  274 
Vaughan,  216 
Vercheres,  Jared  of,  198 
Vercheres,  M.  de,  169 
Vercheres,  Madame  de,   [69 
Vergor,  231 
Vermont,  429,  430 
Verrazano,  7 
Vetch,  Colonel,  19S,  201 
Victoria,  409 

Vignau,  Nicholas,  49-51,  127 
Vikings,  1 
Ville  Marie,  78 
Vimont,  Father,  73,  77,  78 
Vincent,  General,  355,  356,  35S,  359 
Vinland,  1,  2,  3 


Walker,  Sir  Ilovender,  202,  203 

\\  .11  ren,  219 

Washington,    George,    224,     229,     260, 

310 
Webb,  General,  250 
Weir,  Lieutenant,  429 
Wetherell,  Colonel,  429 
Wilkinson,  367,  368 
William,  Fort,  112,  397,  398,  399 
William  of  Orange,  165,  166 
Williams,  William,  403 
Winchester,  General,  363 
Winder,  356,  357,  358 
Winnipeg,  210,  387,  394 
Winnipeg  Lake,  208 
Winthrop,  176 
Wisconsin,  106 
Wisconsin  River,  132 
Wolfe,  James,  44,  252-257 
Wye  River,  85,  88,  89,  92 

Yeo,  Sir  James,  358,  366,  377 
York  Fort,  3S4,  3s 5 


— 


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